Teaching Your Children to Clean

We want our children to grow to be responsible adults. When children learn responsibility it boosts their independence and self esteem.  Responsibilities can be geared to your child’s skill level.  Toddlers and pre-school ages imitate and learn from those around them.  They use sensory experience and like playfulness. You can start with a safe environment that will take some planning.   Remove potential hazards, cover electrical outlets, locks to secure cabinet doors and drawers, put breakables out of reach, don’t leave cords hanging, cover stove controls, cook on back burners, use a safety gate, put tablecloths out of grabbing reach, leave medication and cleaning products out of reach and keep emergency numbers near the phone. 

Make clean up fun, put music on and sing songs.  Before vacuuming and dusting have the kids pick up toys and clutter from the floor.  Use bins with different pictures to sort the toys, legos, blocks, trucks, stuffed animals, etc.  Kids love to use spray bottles and sponges to help with the cleaning, use friendly non toxic cleaning agents.

Young school children can follow directions. The adult presence and encouragement is helpful. For chores they like sweeping, mopping, dusting, and vacuuming. They can clear their plate and get them into the routine to pick up their toys and books. Have goals to work towards, the quality will not be the same as adults work but this will establish a good work ethic.  You can use a chart with stickers to encourage and reward them.

Older children can do chores independently. Sometimes parents nagging, pleading, bribing doesn’t work and parents decide it is just easier to do it yourself.  Start early to get the kids into a routine and lead by example.  Have a job jar where the kids can pick out their job for the week or a clearly defined list for them to check off.  An allowance can be an incentive for chores done and can teach the teen to learn money management skills.  Earning extra money for work such as mowing the lawn, cleaning the rugs, cleaning the basement or garage or babysitting younger siblings can also be included in the allowance.

If you start when they are young enough your children will grow up with organization and structure in their life.