Whistle while you work.

Guest Post: This post comes from one of the most amazing moms I know--Candace Cottrell!! I share it in hopes we will all "up our game" together!

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There is no tried and true formula to getting kids to help more around the house. There will always be moments, hours, or days where it often appears easier to just clean the house yourself, instead of killing yourself trying to get the kids to help out, and then feeling frustrated when they don't. However, I'm a firm believer in the value of teaching a good work ethic, and that the family needs to act as a TEAM. Mom and dad are the captains, while the children are each an important part of the TEAM. If mom is the only ones who does the work, the team will soon end up with a very frustrated, tired captain who will not allow the children to have any fun because she has gone on a lunatic, hysterical rampage. :)

Over the last 15 years of being a mother of five girls, I have found a variety of different ways to approach doing jobs around the house. It's good to have variety, because let's face it: None of us truly jumps for joy when it's time to do housework, but it must be done. However, there is true joy, peace and happiness in having a "house of order."

Much of housework is simply maintaining. If everything has it's place, it is so much easier to clean up quicker. The deep cleaning can be kept to once or twice a week, depending on how busy or active or messy your family has been during the week. Here are some maintaining ideas:

Idea #1: The Bop It Game: Small children love this game, and it's ideal for a room that has gotten rather messy, such as a play room or a bedroom that siblings share. You need two or more children/adults to do this game. One child/adult will begin by picking up 3-5 (you can decide the number you want to do) items in the room, and putting them away. When they are done picking up *5 things, they can come and bop the next child/adult who is sitting in a row on the bed, a bench, the bottom of the stairs, whatever.... That person then has to jump up immediately and run as fast as they can to pick up five things, put them away, then run back and bop the next person on the head. (You always bop the person who is next. You can't go back and bop the one that just did their job because sometimes siblings will gang up on a little one.) :) Hope that makes sense. Anyway, it is a very speedy way to get a messy play room or bedroom cleaned up, and the kids like it, because they can watch their parent or sibling clean while they sit, and then get bopped on the head. (Like duck, duck goose.) My kids will dance and do goofy things as they are picking up the toys. Before they know it, the room is cleaned, and it was fun!

Idea #2: Pick N Choose: On a dry erase board, I will write down an even number of jobs that need to be done around the entire house, for my five children. Usually, I write down 15 jobs, so each girl has to do three. However, sometimes some jobs are harder than others, so I will write down 12 jobs, but three of those jobs require two people to do it (which equals 15 jobs. I will explain more on this option later.) We then begin with the youngest in the family getting to pick whatever job she wants to do. We then write her name down next to the job. Then we have the next youngest (#4) pick a job, then #3, #2, #1, and then #1 (oldest kid) gets to pick again, then #2, #3, #4, #5. Then #5 picks again and it goes back up. That way it is fair. Earlier I mentioned that I might write down 12 jobs, but three of those jobs might be a 2 person job. The kids have a choice of working together (2 people) on a harder assignment, OR... that person can choose to do the two person job by themselves, and then that eliminates one more job they have to do. (If there are 3 chores assigned to each kid, that means that if a child decides to do a two-person job by themselves, they have a total of TWO chores to do. The two-person job and then one more chore which equals "three" jobs.) The kids are surprisingly cooperative on Pick n Choose because they get to pick what jobs they want to do. I have one kid that loves to do toilets, and no one else does, so she always picks the bathroom. WHatever works, and makes them happy! But then again, the kids have learned that sometimes they have to do jobs they don't like to do. That's part of being a FAMILY TEAM.

Idea #3: Assign a Room: This is really simple, because it cleans the whole house pretty quickly. Bedrooms are off limits with this idea. I pick *_ number of rooms that needs cleaning in the house to match the people available to do the work. If there are five children, and one adult available, we have six rooms we assign to be cleaned. (i.e. 6 rooms: kitchen, backyard (pick up toys, scoop poop), piano room/foyer, main bathroom, downstairs family room, play room) We write the room assignments on strips of paper, and put them in a bowl, then each of us draws a room. We then have a time limit (usually 30 minutes?) to get the dusting, vacuuming, picking up, dishwasher, counters, etc. all done. The kids rarely complain about doing this, as the whole house pretty much gets cleaned, except for the bedrooms. Bedrooms are for them to do on their own (however long it takes them) after they get their ONE room done for the FAMILY TEAM.

Idea #4: Maid Visits: I haven't done this a lot, but on a handful of different occasions, when I wanted to have a little fun but really needed help and was willing to pay money by the hour, I would have the girls dress up as maids or look like "Aunt Jemima". They had to come up with a made-up name and outfit. The maids would be requested to come to the house at 9:00 a.m. The girls would then prepare themselves, leave the house, and ring the doorbell at 9:00. I would answer the door, and welcome the new maids, whom I'd "never" met before, and thank them for coming. We would introduce ourselves with each child/maid telling me their name. Even I had a made up name that they would have to call me. Usually, Mrs. Belvedere or something kind of austere like that. They would have to call me that name for the entire morning. I would not respond if they called me mom. I would call them by the name they had picked for themselves for the rest of the morning and then put them to work. They could not talk back, or mope around, because when you work for someone else who isn't your mother, you would NEVER act that way, would you? haha. We would always agree on a set time before hand, that they would work until 11:00 or whatever you agree on. Then they get paid. This works really well, because it puts everything on a more professional level. As Mrs. Belvedere, I find myself being more polite and considerate to them, instead of starting to be grumpy and act frustrated with them since I would never do that to some hired help!

Idea #5: Race against the timer: Such a classic idea, that I know everyone does... but it really works! We put the timer on for one room in the house, and debate as a family how fast we can ALL clean the kitchen... the family room, whatever. If we beat the time, we get a little snack. If we don't, we try again in the next room. We want to get our jobs done quickly, and we like trying to be FAST. It's amazing to be able to say that we've emptied the entire dishwasher in 48 seconds! haha. Or cleaned the entire kitchen in seven minutes (with pots and pans to wash and dry, floors swept, etc.) YEAH! Keep a list of your record times, and see if you can beat them in the future. (Its kind of hard to keep track of times, because the rooms can be varying levels of "messiness" at different times, but it's still fun.)

These are just some things that we do in our family to make doing jobs just a little bit easier and to make us a FAMILY TEAM. Our house is far from perfect, but we CAN clean the whole house fairly quickly,... if you ignore some of my chronicly cluttered rooms that always seem to need help (i.e. storage/craft room, garage, etc.) I still stomp my feet on occasion when one child will not cooperate, but for the most part, they are all very helpful. I am amazed at how much my little five year old can do, simply because she has seen her older sisters do jobs, and doesn't know that she CAN'T or isn't supposed to be able to do something til she is older. The only thing she struggles with, obviously... is dusting higher places she can't reach, or putting some of the dishes away from the dishwasher that she can't reach in the cupboards. But she does really well in the bathrooms, folding washcloths, etc. I have also made it a rule that when a child enters the 7th grade, they are responsible for washing, drying and folding their own laundry. One daughter is very good at keeping up with her laundry, while the other will wait til she has nothing to wear. It doesn't matter to me. It's HER problem. Not mine! haha. I love it, because it's two less bodies I have to worry about, laundry-wise!

What works for you?