Published on Monday, 06 August 2012
House cleaning chores are necessary daily, weekly or monthly and they are time-consuming and require energy and effort. When only one member of the family takes care of all the cleaning, it can be rather overwhelming and frustrating. No matter the size of the house or flat, cleaning takes time and one person doing everything is not very efficient. The reason for that is because when they are finished with dusting and vacuuming, they will be too tired to continue with mopping or cleaning the windows and will probably leave that for later. Afterwards, when they decide to mop, they will have to vacuum again. This makes cleaning quite a hard task and it could seem that they can never finish with it. Getting your family involved in the cleaning process should be practiced at every home - it may not be that easy, but the benefits are definitely worth trying.
Establish an Allowance
This is possibly the best motivator for children. Let them think of things they want, i.e. candies, books, toys. These things cost money and it's better for them to learn that money come with work. Establish an allowance for daily or weekly tasks and give them money when they do the task properly. Teach them that they should learn how to save up for the things they really want in the long-term, for instance. It would be their choice whether to spend the money on candies straight away or save up for a while and buy a video game. Either way, this is a great method to get them involved from an early age. Tasks you can give them to do include: tidying up, dusting, taking out the garbage, and others, depending on their age.
Each member of your family can be given a weekly allowance. In order to receive it, they should do certain tasks round the house. When determining the cleaning tasks and allowance, consider each person's age. Don't trust your 7 year-olds with cleaning china or glasses, but do give them tasks they can cope with, without causing damage. One of the best sides of this method is that you can change the system. If someone doesn't want to take part in the house cleaning, they are free to do so, but they won't be given money. If someone else, however, initiates to do their tasks too, they are given double. Siblings are very competitive and this doesn't happen often, so you can be sure they will all participate.
Clean First, Then Do Something Fun
There are plenty of opportunities for families to do fun things together or in groups. If you are planning a picnic for the next weekend, you can tell everyone that the house heeds to be cleaned first. This will guarantee that everyone who wants to go to the picnic will get involved in the cleaning. If someone doesn't want to participate, give them a separate task, or this might be a problem for the others.
Again, this lesson doesn't just refer to house cleaning and helping out at home. It is more about teaching responsibility and rewarding good work. After a couple of times missing the chance to do something fun, your children will most probably come around and accept the idea of helping out with the cleaning chores. These ideas usually take time to be implemented and for the members of the family to get used to them, but once you manage to establish them, everything will be much easier round the house.