Why do I feel that a clean home automatically means a peaceful home? I’m not sure if you are also a mom who starts to clean when the house gets chaotic, but it has been a struggle of mine for a very long time. I have often found myself trying to get my kids to stop playing and switch to having them clean up. We try to have them pick up toys they are done with before moving on to a new one, but the reality is that has been hard to stick to. I can’t say how many times though that my response to a loud and busy house has been to stop and try to clean up what they are no longer playing with. This inevitably is met with tears and defiance because of course kids do not want to stop their play just because I am overstimulated.
As I have grown as a mom I am able to see that my desire to have them stop and clean has more to do with my desire for control and less to do with an actual need for toys off the ground. I do not need to control how they are playing or how the house looks in the moment, I need to allow them to just play and have fun and how to help myself feel calm even in a messy environment. I have also learned that children’s brains literally do not work that way. I am asking them to do something they don’t understand or have the ability to just switch gears to.
We have always had our kids help pick up, and just like all kids this is sometimes very easy and other times more of a challenge. Right now with the twins; Elisha usually has a great attitude about cleaning while Elizabeth is just in her own world wanting to play. It’s quite a balance of comforting Elisha when she is upset she is the only one cleaning but also not getting frustrated myself that Elizabeth is not helping. And then having to follow through with Elizabeth so that she does help out! I have started giving them specific things to clean up; for example Elisha is responsible for stuffed animals while Elizabeth is responsible for magnatiles. I can then encourage Elisha for the work she is doing and get on Elizabeth’s level, have her make eye contact with me and ask her again to clean up the magnatiles. This has also prevented Elisha doing all of the work while Elizabeth twirls around and plays.
Something we have struggled to be consistent with though is chores and having the kids help with laundry or house cleaning (other than picking up toys). We know that chores help our home rune smoothly however it has been a struggle for my husband and I to implement a consistent chore routine. When Jack and Eva were preschool and kindergarten age we used these responsibility charts and they really liked them. There are a lot of responsibility magnets you can choose from so we were able to switch them out each week, and the kids loved Mickey and his friends on the magnets. Once the twins were mobile it was hard to keep them away from the magnet boards though and often they would get played with. We tried hanging them in an area that Jack and Eva could reach but the twins could not; however that was not a visible space and we did not stay consistent. We have ebbed and flowed with having the kids help with deeper housework like laundry, cleaning bathrooms, dishes and the like. The kids actually enjoy helping with these things, but unfortunately in the past that has been a struggle for me because I would worry about it getting messy in the process, or them using cleaning supplies, or it overall being more work. It can be a hard thing to recognize when your own weakness is getting in the way of helping your children grow. If one of the kids got gross toilet water on their hand while cleaning it, that will help them slow down when doing it in the future, but it’s taken me way too long to embrace that reality.
At the start of the school year my husband and I were in one of our weekly sync meetings and started talking more about chores and teaching our kids more about responsibility and helping out. We spent some time reading and watching other vlogs about chore charts, family meetings and approaches parents take about how to get their kids to do chores. We talked about how chores got done in our homes growing up, we watched everything from Jordan Peterson talking about marriage to stay at home mom’s who had vlogs on YouTube. We looked up chore charts on Pinterest and Etsy and I even looked in Design Space for my Cricut to see if I should make our own. We ended up getting these printables from Etsy and have been using them for over a month now! They have been easy to be consistent with and the kids enjoy marking off their jobs once they have finished it. This bundle comes with a lot of options so we are able to mix it up; I feel like that helps to keep the kids engaged. The expectation and knowledge of chores are consistent but the way the chart looks will vary just a bit. Before we started telling them that they would start doing chores and what they were we wanted to explain to our kids WHY behind doing chores. I feel like the more we focus on the WHY; the more they will be willing to stick to them.
Here are the three reasons we told our kids chores are important in our home
- It will get them ready for being older. We explained to the kids that while they live at home now, and will for quite a few more years, there will be a time where they do not live at home. We want to get comfortable cleaning up the house and cleaning up after ourselves so that when they have their own homes they know how to do these things. Even at a young age, we know that completing the chore, managing time and contributing to our house will help shape their character. They also do not get paid unless their chore is checked off, if they complete one but forget to mark it off that day, they are learning a natural consequence that they do not get their quarter.
- It is too much work for one person! We have a lot of people in our home and everyone contributes to all of the messes. If one person was responsible for all of the cleaning it would be too big of a job. For us to have an enjoyable home we all need to help out. The house really couldn’t feel enjoyable if we weren’t all pitching in, so everyone is needed! When everyone is helping out the burden does not become too much for one person to bear. Another benefit is our children are learning how to communicate and negotiate each week at the meeting when we pick out chores, inevitably more than one kid wants a certain chore and these communication skills are growing in the process.
- It shows gratitude. The task of taking care of our home and belongings is a tangible way to show we are grateful for what we have. When we are all working to keep our home clean we are contributing to the comfort it provides.
All of the kids were able to understand these three reasons and get involved. Each Sunday we have our family meeting where the kids get 25 cents for each job they do and we ask them how they felt about their chores that week. We then have them pick new chores for the week to come and I fill out their new chore chart for the week. Having our kids help out in the home has allowed them to see firsthand how much their dad and I work to provide a comfortable home for them; it allows them to feel that sense of accomplishment and gratitude towards one another as well since they are being active participants in our home. They teach responsibility from a young age (the twins are 4), emphasize the importance of teamwork (the kids often want to help one another clean room or pull weeds), and help us cultivate a sense of gratitude.
We have the charts taped up on a wall right at the foot of our stairs so it’s easy for everyone to see. It’s been fun doing chores with them and seeing the accomplishment they feel after finishing one. It has been fun connecting with them while rinsing dishes or loading the dishwasher. Eva went from needing help to clean the bathrooms to doing it all by herself. I’ll wrap up with this too; a lot of the worries I had about more mess to clean up or it being harder overall; I was completely wrong about. It has also felt so nice to have help getting these things done around our house.
How do you do chores in your home? I’d love to read about what it looks in your home in the comments below!
