31 Days to a Cleaner Home-Day 9: Family Chores

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Let's talk today about family chores.

Our household consists of four people.

If four people live here then four people must also help to maintain it.

As the homemaker I do believe it is my job to do the majority of the work as 

my husband works full time outside of our home to provide for us financially. 

Our children and our home is my full time job.

But this doesn't mean that I am the only one who makes messes or
that I am the only one who should clean up the messes that are made.

We must teach our children the important life skills.
Cooking and cleaning are necessary life skills.

I firmly believe that if I went behind my children and cleaned up everything 

for them I would be doing them a huge disservice, not a big favor. 

I personally believe that everyone should know how to cook and clean no matter their gender.

Family chores are necessary.

Children are capable and willing to help from a young age.

If we don't get them involved when they're young it will be 

even more difficult to implement this as they get older.

From the beginning of our marriage I decided I would never go 

behind my husband and "fix" any job he did around the house.

I am and always will be thankful for my husband's thoughtfulness 

in helping me manage our home.

Just because he may do it differently than I do doesn't make it wrong.

I want to encourage him to help by thanking him, 

not making him feel inadequate by going behind him and redoing it.

The same now goes for my children.

They might not do things the way I would do them sometimes.

And as our children learn how to do something it might not look the best and quite frankly the first few times your child makes their bed on their own it might even look horrible.

Let me encourage you. 

Do Not Fix It.

It says to them 'What you did is not good enough.' 

It teaches them 'mom will come behind me and fix it anyways 

so why bother putting in my best effort.'

You must encourage and expect them to do their best but do not expect perfection.

I can guarantee that you will not be able to bounce a quarter off their bed but these are kids not solders.

Take some time and figure out what responsibility each person will have in your home.

Monkey at 3.5 has a few simple tasks to do to help keep our home running smoothly.

Make his bed.

Put his dishes in the dishwasher after meals.

Wash the table after meals.

Put his books and legos away after rest time.

Help tidy up the toys before rest and before bed.

Put his own clean undies and socks away.

Dirty clothes go into his hamper.

Bug at 17 months is also capable of helping clean up the toys 

with help and encouragement from mommy, daddy, or even big brother.

As I said my husband works full time so I don't expect him to take care of as many things around the house but he does help and has specific tasks that are his.

He takes care of the garbage.

Puts his own clothes away.

And is usually the one who makes our bed.

Also never turn away a child asking to help you.

My son has gotten into this recent unprovoked habit of coming 

up to me or my husband and asking what he can do for us.

He loves to feel needed and to feel useful.

While yes I could do the task faster myself it is more important for me to take the extra time to teach him, to make him feel needed, and to encourage him to serve others in his family.

Today's challenge is to work up a family chore chart.

Get your kids involved.

Make it fun.

If you need to get some ideas on Pinterest.

There are tons of free printables.

Also today take the time to go through and get rid of the cobwebs.

Dust flat surfaces.

Sweep and vacuum.

Oh and get your kids involved. 

My favorite thing to do is to take socks with holes in them, put them on our hands and dust away. Once you're done dusting just toss them in the trash. It also works with those miss matched socks that you feel guilty in getting rid of.