Important Rules When Cleaning With Kids

It can be challenging enough keeping a room clean. However, kids are pretty messy. For one thing, children are at the phase of life where they don’t quite understand adult responsibilities. Therefore, it is important to follow some tips when it comes to keeping a house clean with children. Even when children start to get older, they may constantly have to be reminded to clean up. However, there are certain habits that you can help children develop like picking up after themselves.

1. Start Young

One thing that children like is being helpful to their parents. For one thing, this can help them develop a sense of self worth and learn to respect themselves as humans. When you start them young, they will easily adopt habits of cleanliness. This will help them grow into responsible adults.

One thing that works in getting them to develop good habits is by rewarding the good habits. Give some extra affection in order to encourage them.

The worst thing to do is raise your voice or give them some kind of punishment because they did not pick up their toys. This will instill negative feelings. It is better to respond to good behavior and have a limited response to bad behavior.

2. Encourage Help

A lot of household responsibilities can be really hard for children to do. Therefore, they may require extra encouragement. One thing you can do is ask for their help while making their beds or while cleaning in the spring. Start them off with small parts of the task with steady increase until they are ready to make their own bed. The worst thing to do would be to throw criticism at them for not doing it in a perfect way. For one thing, it could make them feel worthless. It could also discourage them from doing it in the first place because they feel they could never get it right. You also don’t want to redo their work in front of them either.

3. Being Specific Is Very Helpful

As kids get older, they should be getting more responsible. Ages 5 and 6 are milestones, especially since they are starting school at that age. However, they are still kids and it is important to be specific and easy to understand. One of the best things to do is give them one piece of instruction at a time as opposed to a full set of instructions summed up in a phrase. For instance, cleaning the room can be broken down to putting away the toys first and then making their beds, and then any other task that needs to be done.

4. Have Them Clean Under Supervision

When having kids clean the kitchen, it is a good idea to give them supervision. After all, there are a ton of sharp objects that could be dangerous for children at age 9 and 10. It is also important to watch your kids as they are dealing with the vacuuming and other appliances for cleaning because there are a lot of dangers that they don’t understand. At age 9 and 10, they are too young to know how to handle sharp appliances when they are cleaning. Therefore, they can cut themselves and get infected.

5. Weekly Cleaning Charts

These charts are very helpful in making sure the house is clean. However, there is a certain care that needs to be taken when putting together these charts. The most important thing to do is make them realistic. One should avoid being to strenuous. One good suggestion is for Sunday to be a day of rest and to keep Saturday as a minimal cleaning day since the weekend is what kids associate with fun.

There are tons of other tips on how to get children involved in cleaning that could be found online.