Miscellaneous Monday: Housecleaning Chore Tips

Today I will share some household chore tips.  One of the most important things I have found in trying to maintain happiness at home while cleaning is to communicate as a family what is wanted & needed.  To be kind, loving, understanding and helpful while communicating and working together.

Housecleaning Chore tips

• Have a clear description of what each chore entails.  Make sure every family member knows exactly what is expected to get done including:  frequency--how often the chore needs to be done--daily, weekly, monthly, etc.  Timing--what time of the day/week/month is the chore to be done.  It is handy to have a checklist of duties.

• Distribution of chores:  chores can be assigned or chosen.  Determine the number and type of chores based on age & ability.  Kids should learn to work and have chores, but decide carefully how many and what type of chores to give--one method is to divide the age of the child in half and that is how many chores they get.  Even toddlers can do chores when helped (like picking up toys).  Also make provisions about how to divy up chores when someone is sick, out of town, etc.

• Young Children & chores:  the first few times a chore is given to a child & done, a parent should supervise and help to ensure the child clearly understands all that is expected and involved in that chore.  Based on ability, directions for chores should be given specifically and the number of instructions given according to child--whether more or less lengthly instructions can be handled--if they can only process one instruction at a time give one specific instruction--put the toy cars in the car bin, or put the socks in the sock drawer.  If given too many or too lenthly of an instruction, they might get through putting the cars away and totally forget that the blocks, the stuffed animals, the socks and books all needed to be put away too.  Children like to help, so do whatever cleaning needs to be done with them.

• Consequences:  Praise efforts and jobs well-done.  Words of gratitude & praise go a long way.  If needed, tangible rewards can be given.   When chores don’t get done, have set consequences pre-established so that everyone knows what will/will not happen if they neglect their chores--pay for the maid service (whoever did the job gets paid), loss of video game time, tv time, friend time, phone privileges, car privileges, etc.  As a family decide what the rewards as well as the losses will be for doing/not doing chores.

• And should the majority of chores fall on one person, don’t feel overburdened.  Do what works best for you--choosing a day to do all the cleaning or spreading the chores out over the entire week and then maintaining them the rest of the time.

• If your family has a designated cleaning time (like Saturdays 10am), then make sure everyone understands that is scheduled time and nothing else gets scheduled during that time without family approval and a system in place to ensure the chore(s) still get done.

• Chore charts can be handy.  They can be paper, chalkboard, whiteboard, etc.  This allows kids and all alike to see what their chores are at a glance.