With four children, I really want to teach them how to help around the house and learn how to do things for themselves. This is not always easy but it is something that needs to be done.
I try to start when they are little because that is when they love helping and being praised for doing it.
People often ask me about this and right now I give the kids little jobs to help but nothing too big right now. I have them clean up their rooms, toys, make their own bed (not daily though- we need to get better with this), help with the dishes, they can sweep, vacuum and occasionally put some laundry away. I am pretty relaxed about this because when I got pregnant with Andrew, I hired a cleaning service for the deep cleaning but I still want to teach the kids to be responsible for their own things.
The ages of my kids are 7, 5, 3, and almost 4 months.
Today, I want to share a little video with you showing an example of how I do this.
Here is Matthew (age 3) helping with the dishwasher. He loves his chores and really feels like he is helping.
(I did have to "help" a little in the video but I thought he was going to break the door. He didn't like being "helped")
As you can see in the video, we use Shaklee's Dish Detergent and LOVE it!! You saw that we only use a little bit. I never pre-rinse anything and they are always clean. Plus, because it is non-toxic, the kids can actually help me by putting it in the dishwasher and it won't leave any nasty chemical residue on our dishes.
You might of also seen our oven grates in the dishwasher. I throw those in the dishwasher about once a week and that seems to works great!
What chores do you give your kids?
How do they respond?
Do you have a rewards chart or incentive?
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Happy cleaning!
Bonnie :)
He is so stinking cute!!!!!! He reminds me of Audrey. She doesn't like to be helped either! haha
ReplyDeleteLove Matthew!! He is so stinkin' cute! And he is better at age 3 doing his chores than my boys are at ages 9 & 11, lol!
ReplyDeleteChores are so important! My DD had to clean her room and bathroom every week. And feed the cats in the AM.
ReplyDeleteEvery time I read an article about keeping kids away from drugs, it says assigning chores is one of the most important things to do. Great job, Bonnie!
He's so cute!
ReplyDeleteOH my gosh that was precious!! "Let me, Let me help you!!!" haha. Oh goodness... it's all day long here!
ReplyDeleteThat was too cute! It made me laugh. You can see he takes his job "seriously". Oh, i am still laughing. He's a doll.
ReplyDeleteHe is so precious and so proud and happy to be doing his chores! I love that age, they are so helpful. My kids loved their chores too at that age, and even older.
ReplyDeleteMine are adults now, but when they were children they took turns each night at dinner chores. One was kitchen helper (helped me with dinner if needed and set the table) and the other was kitchen cleanup (the whole family helped put away the food and loaded our own dishes into the dishwasher, but the cleanup child was responsible for wiping down the dinner table, loading the serving dishes into the d.w. and sweeping the floor).
They also each cleaned a bathroom. At three they can clean a bathroom with baby wipes, and even at age seven I had them use baby wipes. By the time they were older I allowed them to use a cleaning wipe. I just would not trust a three year old with a cleaning wipe, lol!
My seven year old LOVED his dishwashing gloves. He absolutely loved them, lol! He also loved the mini broom that I bought him.
No, we did not use rewards or incentives. We were using chores to teach a work ethic and yes, you get paid to go to work, but you don't get paid to work at home. We just taught them that chores were just part of everyone working together to make home a pleasant place to be.
We also had them help out at my parents with chores sometimes, to teach them a servant heart. We also had chores at home that "nobody" wanted to do, like scooping up after the dog, etc. and they could earn money that way.
I love the approach of giving your children simple household chores, and then hiring a cleaning service to help with the bigger items. That way you can use your time to invest in your children. Good going, Mom!
ReplyDeleteI actually blogged something similar! We use the timer on the stove and my oldest loves doing that, it's like a game then! It works every single time we do it. Set the timer for ten minutes, clean up as much as we can, when the timer goes off, we are done! We do this a couple times a day. As far as "regular" chores, she is responsible for keeping her room cleaned and I just incorporated her taking the dog outside now that she's old enough.
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