How to Encourage a Child to Help Clean the House

Interrupting the busy day of any child for cleaning can be an easy transition if a few consistent steps are followed.

Difficulty: Moderately challenging

Instructions

Things You'll Need:

• Clear Contact Paper
• Construction Paper
• Poster Boards
• Stickers

1. Make a list of chores that need to be done in your house. Include jobs such as taking out the garbage, washing the dishes, taking care of pets and doing yard work. Include rooms that require regular cleaning such as bathrooms, bedrooms and family areas. Rewrite the list on a large permanent sheet for all family members to see.

2. Divide the list evenly with all participating family members present. Make slips of paper with chores on them and let each family member choose. Discuss the chores and provide solutions for sharing duties that are undesirable such as taking out the garbage, bathing a pet or cleaning bathrooms.

3. Create rewards for doing chores and consequences for not doing them. Decide as a group how rewards and consequences will be distributed and how chores will be scored. Parents as well as children should have consequences.

4. Meet as a family once a week for the first month using the chore chart. Praise your children for completing chores. Make any changes in chores that are not getting done and rotate undesirable chores.

Tips & Warnings

• Be clear about exactly what the chore means. Does cleaning the kitchen mean cleaning the floor and the countertops?
• Think of a big reward for your child if chores are done consistently for a month.
• Buy a weekly or monthly chart from an office supply store and have it laminated for permanent use.
• Use stickers to track chores for younger children. Use quarters for older children.
• Follow through with consequences and remind your child that the consequence was determined as a group.
• Create your own consequences if you are using this as a way to break bad cleaning habits already in place.

on 2/28/2006 When I married, I inherited a 13 year old step-daughter. Together, she and I surveyed each room, writing down what needed to be done for each -- one 4x6 card per room. It worked out that there were six rooms and three people, so we agreed it would be fair for each person to take on two rooms per week, and do the chores on those rooms' cards. She was included in the development process, and I let her pick what rooms she wanted to do. This gave her a bit of control over her destiny, while at the same time not letting her off the hook of family responsibility. It seemed to work pretty well.

on 11/22/2005 There are many different software packages out there which can help you to organize the chores. www.chorebuster.net for example, automatically shares the chores out among the household in a fair way, because each chore is given a rating of how hard it is. Others you might also like to try include Chore Genie and Chores and Rewards.

on 11/22/2005 When the kids are in the primary grades, it is easy to get them to clean by putting on some very energetic music (The Flight of the Bumble Bee comes to mind) and giving them the instructions to run the stairs. They go from floor to floor, picking up what belongs on one of the other floors as they pass. They know that when the song ends they are done (so cleaning doesn't drag on forever.) The rooms, or even the whole house, will look remarkably better and the little bit that is left Mom or Dad can easily finish up. The more kids that participate; the more fun and the cleaner it will be.\t
For older kids who don't want to look silly running around, it's the same concept but with a straight forward directive - "Pick up 5000 things in 5 minutes at 5:00." Of course you know that your 5 kids will never find 25,000 things to clean in your house, but the younger of the set will sometimes start picking up lint off the floor and the older ones are willing to put away whole buckets of laundry to make it look like they've done a lot. It all takes only 5 minutes of their precious time. Just a quick once over with a vacuum cleaner or a mop and the dust cloth and things are looking manageable.

on 11/22/2005 I tried everything with my two daughters (7 & 4) to get them to help with the chores around the house, but nothing would stick until I made it more of a game. As they are playing, I walk around the house with pen and paper, writing a list of all the things I want them to do (for example, put up all shoes, pick up all stuffed animals, etc). After making my list, I cut it into strips, put them in a hat, and let the kids know it's time to "draw from the hat." They get excited to see what they will get, and after months of doing this, I haven't had any complaints or whines from them.