As we move into February – which, despite its short duration, can often feel like the longest month of the year – the state of our homes can make a big impact. Because when it’s freezing or sleeting out, we can’t LEAVE!
So I thought I’d republish this post from last year to give you ideas for how to motivate your small masses to help keep the house clean. Good luck!
We all know kids make a lot of mess. But if yours are old enough to hold a broom or put a toy in a basket, they’re old enough to take some of the work off your plate. Of course, that doesn’t mean it’s always easy to get them to clean up after themselves or join in when you need a hand, but with some effort and patience, you really can get your children to pitch in and make your job easier. Here are some of my best tips for getting your kids to help out around the house:
Start ‘em early
The younger you get the kids on board with helping out, the better: they should grow up used to the idea that keeping the house clean is the entire family’s responsibility. Give little ones age-appropriate tasks. For example, whenever we do a cleaning spree of the main floor, William (9) and Owen (7) get the job of putting shoes and boots in pairs and lining them up neatly at the door. Hey, with seven family members, we have a lot of footwear! Even little ones can pick up toys and put them away or “wash” dishes (which is how I keep Clara occupied and out of the way while we’re all cleaning up!)
Break a large job down into specific tasks.
It’s not enough to tell a child “clean up your room.” Most of them need help breaking down a big job into smaller chunks and putting them in order. When Will and Owen clean their rooms, I’ll usually have one of them pick up all the Lego while the other picks up all the action figures, and so on. When one job is finished they come to me for another assignment.
Invest Training Time
If you want something done right, you’re going to have to do a lot of supervising. It took me a good three months of daily training to get my oldest boys to the point where they could do the dishes and laundry correctly–and once in a while they will still occasionally try to get away with sticking a plate in the dishwasher with crusty melted cheese stuck to it.
Lesson learned: Don’t expect kids to do a job adequately without a lot of up-front help from Mom or Dad, and even then, expect backsliding and slacking off from time to time. If there are certain tasks you need to have done a certain way, don’t delegate those. For example, I clean the bathrooms myself because it’s worth it to me to have it done “right.”
Stick to a System
If your kids know that every single night one washes and the other puts away, it becomes a predictable routine and they really will stop complaining…eventually. Mix things up for a few days or give them a break and just watch them act amazed and confused next time you ask them to do something.
Kids do best when they know exactly what’s expected of them, and moms are happiest when they don’t have to repeat themselves over and over. Don’t make delegating hard on yourself: come up with a simple, predictable routine that’s easy for kids to remember and easy for you to oversee.
Model a no-nonsense, prompt approach to pick-up.
Once upon a time my approach to mess was drama, followed by procrastination. If something spilled, I first over-reacted: “Gahhhhhh crayons on the floor? Arrrrrghhhh ughhhh meh life with kids so messy grumble grumble stupid crayons arg bleh grumble.” Then, I would avoid cleaning the mess for hours, feeling like I needed time and space to gather my energy before I could deal with it.
Guess what? It turns out walking past a mess half a dozen times doesn’t make you any more motivated to clean it up. The opposite, in fact. And I realized I was being a horrible model for my kids, initially in making every mess out to be a tragedy, and then by teaching them to avoid things instead of face them head-on.
I’ve done a complete 180 in that regard, and now try to deal with any mess the instant it’s made, cheerfully and matter-of-factly, instead of piling on the drama and procrastination. And you know? As it turns out, messes are….just not that big a deal.
I’m not saying I’m always perfect at this–the temptation to over-react and then run in the other direction is strong–but I’m always a lot happier when I just take care of the mess quickly and with as little fuss as possible.
Do you struggle with getting your kids to help out around the house? Or do you have some great tips to share? I’d love to hear about it in the comments!
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*image by George Cruikshank, LIFE magazine, 1938
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Mr. Sandwich and I were just talking about this last night–Baguette is nearly two, and we can get her to help us pick things up and put them in containers. (Sometimes.) (And of course dumping them back out of the containers is often part of that process.) We plan to continue encouraging that. Maybe we’ll even be able to extend that to putting away toys!
I figure that she can make her own bed, certainly by the time she’s three. And she can wipe things up, and do other age-appropriate tasks. Once I figure out what those are.
At this age I think it’s all about setting the habits for later. It’s amazing how cheerful little cleaner-uppers toddlers can be. It’s when they hit 5 or 6 that they start protesting, I’ve noticed – but sometimes I think it’s because I’ve expected too much from them all at once. Breaking it down helps a lot – and I have been known to offer incentives (like cookies or a quarter) for bigger jobs.
Right now, I have a toddler who can’t quite do a lot of cleaning up on his own yet (does him being a diaper-free toddler through EC count? coz he doesn’t really make me clean up anymore in that aspect). But I think the tips that you wrote about are definitely on the money. Our parenting style is to just tell him how things happen “normally” without having to go the behaviorist route of reward and punishment to elicit behavior (as they say in psychology lingo). We simply tell him and show him so he understands that this is how it is. I do agree that it is important to start early and to invest in training. It’s not enough to tell them what to. You gotta show em and supervise until you know they can do it the way it’s supposed to be done. And thank you for the reminder that with kids, it’s really important to break down the task into specific tasks. When he’s ready, I think I will look this post up again and review!
I am also a believer in getting kids to do things for the intrinsic value of it – I think where that becomes difficult is when they simply aren’t motivated by cleanliness or neatness. Some people just aren’t, but they are still living around other people whose needs count, too. So part of the internal motivation is getting them to respect other people’s needs…and that doesn’t seem to kick in until they’re a little older, at least with the cleaning stuff. In any case it hasn’t been a big deal in our family; the big kids don’t always WANT to clean, but they will do so if asked, because they understand that is part of living in a family. The middle kids will try to get out of it (just like their older brothers did at their age) and sometimes need a little extra motivation. I don’t mind offering some incentive – I figure we all have those things we do for the love of it, and other things we do because somebody’s paying us
Ahh! Thanks for sharing this! My kids are 6 & 4 and while we do encourage them to help around the house and give them responsibilities I was very convicted about the grumbling! I’m a grumbler about messes and although I don’t like to grumble, I just never realized the impact it might have on them. You’re right, messes although a bit inconvenient aren’t *that* big of a deal… I think the fact that they seem constant makes them a bigger deal. Thanks for the reminder to change my attitude, as I’m sure one day I’ll miss all those little messes, right!?
You are so right! Walking past a mess 6 times only makes me 6 times less happy about having to pick it up. I laughed when I read the “life with kids so messy grumble grumble stupid crayons arg bleh grumble.” I have felt this often. Your post is a great reminder for the power of changing one’s attitude and the importance of modeling good behavior. Thank you!
i realized the easiest way for my kids to keep their rooms clean is to have very few toys, books, etc. so there are only a few things to put away.
everything else is in bins, and they can “rotate” in new stuff whenever they want, as long as some of the old stuff goes into the bin instead. and honestly, *they* are happier without so much stuff, too.
Totally. My boys’ rooms are like Army barracks – a bed, a dresser, and a bookshelf and that’s it! Toys are kept in a communal location – I think it makes it much easier for me to stay on top of them to stay on top of it
I just started doing this in my home and found the same to be true. I moved their toys to the living room where they all have a ‘place’ in their storage bins and found this to be much easier to manage.
I alternate between singing a song, which helps to motivate my 3-year-old to pick up, or asking him, “oh, do you have too many toys to pick up? maybe we should donate some if you can’t pick them all up?” when i’m getting more push back.
Thanks for the tips. My kids are 4 and 17 months. I can’t wait until they are old enough to help out. I need to work on the grumbling and procrastinating in the meantime.
I have a hilarious picture of my son holding a Swiffer duster back when he was little enough he could barely walk…obviously he wasn’t helping much, but I figure it’s always good to make him feel like part of the cleaning team
Now that’s he’s 2 and a half, he does help put toys away and has his own little broom to use when I use my real one. I think maybe since he’s the only kid so far he thinks he’s one of the grown-ups, so he likes to do whatever we are doing-even boring stuff like sweeping.
This is some good advice. I can have totally done the “Ah! Spilled crayons all over the floor! Grumble! Grumble!” bit. Had to laugh!
So glad I’m not the only mom who’s done the “Bleh argh grumble grumble!” Thanks for the great comments all
Good point about not whining about messes, especially since we model how we want our kids to act. My kid is still at the age where cleaning is fun, and I do my best to treat messes and clean up as matter of fact and even something he can look forward to doing (e.g. spraying, wiping, etc.).
I so wish I’d been better about teaching my kids when they were younger! I tried, really I did, but I had some health problems and ended up needing cleaning help which was great for me, bad for my kids’ sense of entitlement. Now I’m trying to train them at ages 7, 9 and 11. At least they’re more capable, although I usually have to pay them. Meagan, do you have any posts on getting older kids to help out and how to reward them properly?
My toddler definitely is one of those cheerful helper types. When it’s time to do any kind of housekeeping, he’s right there beside me “dusting” with his little Swiffer brush. He also helps pick up his toys as long as I sing a song about picking up – that’s our deal.
Chaos around the house makes me feel tense, and that’s why we make a point to keep things pretty orderly. He’s not really doing any of the heavy lifting yet in regards to chores (oh, joyous day that he can run a vacuum!), but it’s all about instilling habits at this point, so I’m happy!
Oh my gosh! This article is so helpful! I totally do the drama/avoidance. The house is always a disaster! I literally Anderson Cooper giggled when I read “…the temptation to over-react and then run in the other direction is strong…” I SOOO do this and didn’t think about anyone else out there doing it. I don’t think I even realized EYE was doing it! GUILTY!
I have a terrible time getting the kids to put things away and help out. I hate following through and feel too busy doing my own things to stop and facilitate what I tell them to do. Then I just end up yelling at them from every room that I find a mess (they’re usually not even in the room) and am totally overwhelmed. They are at the point of tuning me out unless threats of toy expulsion are involved-which I totally don’t like to do, but when the veins are popping out at the temples of my red face, it’s my go-to desperate move. I am going to pour over everyone’s suggestions here tomorrow. (And agree with the less toys/stuff comment! I’m reading Simplicity Parenting right now, so, I’m working on that one!) Thank you for the great article! I need to post it on my finger-printed, stained steel refrigerator!
Great point about sticking to a system. Sometimes I give up on a routine before I’ve given it a chance, and it just confuses the kids.
Lately I’ve been spending a lot of time purging the toys–too many toys for them to keep up with. I tell the kids that we need to find the amount of toys they can care for.
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