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If you’ve been reading my blog very long, you know I’m very passionate about teaching my children life skills – like how to clean a toilet. A home is enjoyed by all who live there, I think it should be kept up by all who live there. My children feel a sense of pride in our home and want it to feel good and clean, and I love that they know they’re an important part of that.
If you’re starting from square one, don’t worry about starting all of the different ideas at once. Start with the one that excites you most, then build from there over time.
The blog posts have a lot more details than I can mention in a short summary, so they are worth the read!Ā Here are a lot of different ideas to consider –
- Big Huge List of Kid Chores Grouped By Age: You won’t have your kids do all of these at once, but it is good to rotate in these different responsibilities so that your kids learn about the different kinds of jobs it takes to keep a house clean.
- Kids Chores & Routines Checklists: There are multiple styles – pick the ones that fit your kids and your needs. Not one form is going to work for every age and situation.
- The Jar of Job Opportunities {Money Jar}: These are not jobs my kids are required to do, these are jobs they CAN do if they want to earn money. Want that new purse or squishy toy? Earn it!
- Clean Routine – FREE Editable Printable: I include this with the kids chores, even though it is really the “parent chore list,” because I talk about a very important tip. The tip involves coordinating your children’s chores with your own. Like, the day you expect yourself to clean bathrooms, assign out a small aspect to a child.
- How I Torture My Kids to Keep My House Clean Year Round: I do a lot of my Spring Cleaning year round, well the deep cleaning room-by-room portion. About once a month (some months I may double up and the busiest months I skip), the kids and I go into a room and deep clean it.
- After Dinner Jobs (FREE Printable): This is how I make sure my kitchen is completely clean at least once per day. It is all hands on deck until the kitchen is clean. Enjoy the cute Job Wheel with kitchen cleaning broken down into 6 small jobs.
- Kids Command Center {For Hanging Lists & More}: In our last house, I created a command center for the kids to have all their chore/school/other info in one place. I’ve missed it here!
- Maintain Clean Kids Rooms: 4 Basic Strategies: I wrote this blog post 5 years ago, but the tips are still very valid. My kids were younger than and we needed a lot of these strategies. There is light at the end of the tunnel, though, because my older three are self-sufficient room-cleaners. It’s amazing.
- Let Them Try: This is a reminder, which includes my personal stories, to let your kids try!
All of these things together may sound like a big scary overwhelming ordeal, but they are all broken up and most of the jobs/strategies take a few minutes at a time. Remember to just incorporate one at a time, and build from there.
When you’re in the habit to do a little cleaning every day and other family members do the same, you can completely change the atmosphere of your home.
From my home to yours,
Mary
I know it’s been a while since you wrote this article, but I wanted to ask you a question about it. When during the school week do your kids do chores? I want my children to do them, but I find that our days after school are so busy and packed with things to get done that we don’t seem to have time. When I try to have them do chores, they end up, either, in bed too late or too tired and my house stays messy, and I feel like they are not learning to help. Would you mind sharing how you organize your schedule? I have four children like you; though mine are younger. Their ages range from 5 to 11 years old.
Right now, with 2 high schoolers, one middle schooler, and one elementary, things are definitely different than when I originally wrote this post. What works for us right now are for each kid to have just a couple of family responsibilities during the school week – like everyone still helps clean up from dinner, they pack their own lunches, and then do odd jobs like garbages when I ask. Then, on Saturdays, they have actually chores to do, like clean their bedrooms and rotate other bigger ones. It’s about an hour of work on Saturday unless they let their rooms get bad during the week. Definitely feel empowered to make the schedule fit your life! It has to feel right to really happen regularly.