Keeping Your House Clean - Keeping Your Sanity

Want a little help with getting the house clean or the yard work done? There are many local businesses out there that specialize in custom yard care and anything from a heavy spring cleaning to light weekly house work. Many of these places offer great services, but can be pricey. Then after the work is done, it may no be to your satisfaction. A simple solution? Recruit those kids! Yeah, right!

This is not such a crazy and unthinkable idea. Kids are natural pleasers and are happy to offer their expertise if they know it is needed and appreciated. I have found that while my kids don't love to do chores, they are willing to help out if they know that how much they are contributing. A little bit of a reward goes a long way to recruiting cooperation. I don't really like the idea of bribery, but when you call it a reward, I'm all for it. After all, a clean yard and home are reward in itself for mom and dad, so why not reward our kids for their efforts?

The first part of getting your kids to want to help is by making cleanup time fun. There are quite a few songs that go along with cleaning time and as silly as they sound, they actually do make putting toys away seem pretty fun. For older kids, let them listen to their own kind of music, whether on the stereo or on their personal music players via headphones. Rocking out to cool tunes makes (almost) any job go a little faster!

Working together as a family shows teamwork. If you bark orders at your kids to get their chores done while you are watching TV, the kids are not likely to want to jump into action themselves. If you tackle a batch of laundry or a sink full of dirty dishes together, work can become a fun way to communicate and appreciate each other's efforts.

Let your kids have a chance to pick up and put away their own toys and belongings. If they don't do it, then take it and put it in a basket or box. Save their items until they can earn their toy back by doing an extra chore. This doesn't have to seem like a harsh punishment, but definitely a chance for kids to be held responsible for their actions or non-actions. This is an easily reversible learning lesson. The item is taken away, then can be quickly earned back.

Make sure that the chores you assign to your children are understandable and doable by that certain child. I can ask 2 of my girls who are only 20 months apart to do exactly the same job and the results will be worlds apart. Make your expectations clear and precise. When telling a child that the living room needs to be cleaned up, quickly throw in that the couch cushions need to be arranged neatly as well. Putting extra effort into explanations at the beginning will result in happier results in the end without having to ask your kids to redo something or making them feel like they didn't get it quite right.

Most important in recruiting your children's help is the appreciation that they feel from you for their efforts. True, most of the messes made around our homes is a direct result of kids' toys and evidence of much playtime. However, if they are shown how to help and given a fun and precise way to do it, then chances are, clean up time will be a happy experience for the whole family.

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