Household: tips for involving children

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Tired of repeating "Put away your room!" And "Come help me!"? We are not promising you the moon, but here are some avenues to explore with your children so that they will admit that cleaning does not necessarily rhyme with carnage.

Tip 1: Explain the need for cleaning

Busy with the daily hassles, we are often forced to go quickly. Behind, the children must follow. In the morning, we ask them to hurry to get dressed, in the evening to hurry to brush their teeth. In between, we add a bunch of constraints that they understand more or less well.Comprehension , however, this is one of the essential keys to communicating in the family. Cleaning remains a chore, whatever the age. Both the child and the adult see no fun in it (but that can change, as we'll see in another tip). If children also do not understand why they should do these boring tasks, it is normal for them to drag their feet to accompany you. For comparison, imagine that you are forced to do 50 pushups each morning but without knowing the usefulness of such an exercise. Knowing why (having concrete abs) makes chore useful, if not fun. It is the same for the household: never forget to explain why it is necessary to do this or that task because if it seems to make sense to you, it is not necessarily the same for children . Taking five minutes to explain to your kids why they need to tidy up their desks is not a waste of time. On the contrary ! Not only will they appreciate your explanation, but they will also feel that they are being treated as "grown ups".

Tip 2: set an example

You may have already noticed that when you move in with someone, the person comes with their own lifestyle and storage habits. You don't just inherit physical or character traits from your parents, it also works with housekeeping fads! One person changes the sheets every Sunday morning, the other will fold the socks in a certain way. Adults, we often reproduce the same instructions we were used to in our youth. Conversely, if the parents have no method of storage and cleaning, it is very difficult for the children to be demanding on the household themselves.

If you leave your things lying around, you don't have the right to ask your children to have their room tidy. To sum up, to have an ordained child, you have to be yourself! You can't moralize about the basket of dirty laundry if your own things are still lying on your bed. Even if you rightly consider that there are differences in treatment (for example your handbag does not store like his sports bag), your child will not have the same vision of things and may find it unfair that you force him to do tasks that you do not apply yourself. So you have the obligation to be beyond reproach , or you risk a family mutiny!

Tip 3: explore the fun side

No need to pretend: cleaning is not a pleasant activity. It always stays dirty, tiring and boring. With such a program, it is difficult to convince children to accompany us. So that this moment of obligation does not turn into torture, we will have to be tricky and use ploys. The most obvious solution is to add a fun touch to these tasks . By passing the housework for a family play session, the pill will be much easier to swallow. If this method has proven itself, it does not hold miracles either and can divert children from the real purpose of the household namely life in society (so do not abuse it). Here are some examples of games to offer to children: - Cleaning with music. A frenzied playlist can move any child, so take the opportunity to make him hold a broom in his hands! This trick works even better if he can choose his music (at your own risk). - The timed challenge. With siblings, you can play the spirit of competition to know who will end up tidying up the room first. This game only works if the brothers and sisters like to compete in a fair way, that is to say that it is not won. - The household Olympiads. You can organize a list of events like window washing and dusting the library. The problem being that the organization of these Olympiads will take as long to organize as the cleaning. In addition, the trick will only work once (they will have grabbed the circle).

Hide and seek is not a good idea for a game. Finally, the best advice we can give you is to keep your good mood during the cleaning. Being able to see his mother's smile in a well-cleaned mirror will be enough for the child (yes, if)!

Tip 4: empower rather than order

Indeed, the main concern of the household is that it often makes a bad mood ... the parent. Suddenly this last cry, invective, gets angry with the child who finds that really, the household is to be banished. To avoid getting upset, adults should not run after time and deal with chores urgently.A family needs organization because it limits the time of conflict and exasperation. It is not a question of regulating the whole life at home which would be untenable but of giving precise rules on some points to live better together. You will see that your child is much more receptive to this kind of organization than one would imagine. The reason is simple: not only does he generally like rituals, but he is also used to them at school. To make life easier in the community, classes are often organized with a table of tasks that change every week. All children must submit to it and they take it as a sign of trust to be given responsibilities. It is enough to reproduce the same diagram at home and if everything does not have to be organized in a military way, certain small chores like setting the table can be part of a list of responsibilities to share with family.

Tip 5: strengthen the team spirit

Just talk about this principle of family sharing because it is the very basis of the success of your goal. If you really want your children to be more involved in household management, you will have to start with a little self-criticism. It is not a question of flogging you but of determining if there is injustice in the air. Don't you call on the elder too often to help you? Don't you ask your daughter more often to vacuum? Are you not sparing the last kid too much? So many examples that can give your children a feeling of injustice and different treatments, and suddenly put them off when it comes to helping you tidy up and clean up. What to do in this case? Start with a great discussion around a table and explain that a family is like a team, that you have to be in solidarity with each other . Reassure everyone about the tasks at hand and try as much as possible to give everyone a mix of chores, easy and less easy. Once everyone agrees, you will see that family housekeeping sessions will no longer be moments of tension.