Introduction
Most people think that money, childcare, healthcare, or homework causes a lot of heated conversations in American homes. However, chores are the number one reason for family tension. If you need to get your home cleaned quickly, you can search for “home cleaning services near me” and hire pros for the job. Otherwise, you’ll need to make household chores into a team effort, and here’s how:
The Details
1. Craft a chore calendar – The best way to eliminate arguments over who is responsible for which chore, you need to make a chore calendar. List down the family’s daily, weekly, and monthly cleaning duties and invite all the family members to mutually decide on everyone’s tasks and schedules. Once the chores have been fairly distributed among each member, use a dry-erase calendar or a printable chore chart from the internet to write everything down.
Write down everyone’s responsibilities and make sure that you don’t mix up timing or people. After you’ve skillfully crafted a core calendar, place it in a visually distinct location. The fridge door is the usual choice. That way everyone can be aware of their duties and stay on track without the need for reminders or nagging.
If you have young children at home, you need to make the chore chart more colorful and interesting to grab their attention. Use vibrant and dark colors, attractive borders, and colorful paper for making the chore chart.
2. Choose age-appropriate chores for kids – parents make a common mistake when assigning chores to their kids. They forget that they are kids. You need to consider the age of your kids and make sure they are capable of performing the assigned chores. Young kids have an abysmally small attention span and limited motor skills. They will easily get overwhelmed if you give them complex and lengthy tasks.
To figure out the chores that can be done by your kids, set a timer and give them small chores. If your kid is younger than five, the chore should be limited to three steps or less and should be doable within 15 minutes. Chores that fit that criteria include tidying up dirty laundry, putting away toys, emptying wastebaskets, and more. The goal is to assign chores that won’t tire out or frustrate your little one.
When your kids reach the age of six, they are ready to do more complex chores like dusting, wiping surfaces, emptying the dishwasher, keeping their rooms clean, and helping with laundry. However, it’s best to keep chores simpler till your kids hit the preteen years. After that, they can vacuum upholstery and are ready to deal with disinfectants for wiping the floor.
3. Minimize clutter – To make household chores a team effort, you need to get kids involved. However, if your home is full of clutter, it’s a risky environment for the kids, especially if they are 5 years old or younger. That’s why you need to create a clutter-free environment. To do that, you’ll need to expend a bit more energy and establish clutter-free practices and enforce similar habits among family members.
Make sure to put away dirty laundry, sharp or hard objects, and other such items from the floor, furniture, and other places in your home. You’ll also need to create a designated place for storing kids’ toys, stationery, and other such things and make sure they put away their things after using them.
The same holds for teens and adults at home. This also keeps the home less messy and makes cleaning easier for everyone. Even if a cluttered home isn’t dangerous to your kids, it is stimulating and distracting enough. You want the kids to focus on their chores instead of shiny and squishy toys.
4. Demonstrate a positive attitude for chores – Kids mimic adults as they grow up. They learn beliefs, behaviors, and everything else by imitating their parents. This isn’t just true for your little ones, but for the rebel teens as well. So, if you treat housework like a burden, the children will treat it the same way and see it in a negative light. Anytime household chores come up they will try to find excuses to avoid or delay them.
Instead, you need to embrace those chores and develop a sense of accomplishment after you finish them. On the same note, you can’t make your children do extra chores as punishment. That simply amplifies the negative association they have with chores and breeds resentment within the house. Instead, try to portray chores as a meaningful way of contributing to the household. You can do so by praising them once they complete a chore. You can give them a monthly allowance as a reward for doing the chores.
5. Make it fun and get help – If you and your family have a common day set aside for cleaning the home from top to bottom, once a month, you need to make sure to evaporate all the tension by making it fun. Make it an enjoyable event. Use your smart speakers and AI assistants to play uplifting and fun music. Turn those household chores into a game and a challenge where family members try to clean the home by dancing to the rhythm of the song.
Even if you clean your home thoroughly and get the whole family involved, sometimes, chores just pile up. It’s okay to get external help by hiring a cleaning service or maid once a month or every two months. That way you can catch up on the chores and start off clean. If you have a large home or a big family, avoiding external help is simply impossible.
Conclusion
Household chores seem inconsequential. They can be done relatively quickly by almost anyone. However, if allowed to accumulate, they can be overwhelming and when it’s not a team effort, family members may feel like they are doing all the work while everyone else is slacking. Fortunately, you can always search for “home cleaning services near me” and hire professionals to make things easier for you.