{Tip of The Day} Family Cleaning made fun!

What does.......

Equal?

A Cleaning Party!


I have have 4 kids (well 3 at home now) and I know how hard it is to get them to do their chores everyday. I have a few huge whiners in the mix too-they do their job eventually- but boy I want to be like NCIS Special Agent Leroy Jethro Gibbs & smack them in the back of the head sometimes! :p

I found something better though, something that keeps my conscience & my house clean anyway.

Takes 20 minutes a day (use a timer).
Each child gets a room to clean.
Put in a cd of upbeat fun music.
Reward with candy along the way.


Simple? Maybe not always, but it works. I love to workout to music (ok not really in terms of working out, but I love the music motivation) so why not do housework the same way? My kids love the music of today and ironically I do too, so we pick some good music, and I pull out the candy to munch on as we go, set the stove top timer, and off we go!

The key is the music, the time limit makes them feel like they can do it for that short amount of time, and give them a treat they do not always have. It's all motivation. Am I bribing them? Maybe some might say that, but it works for me-so no judging me, and I wont you. :)

We change rooms everyday, so if let's say "Johnny" had living room yesterday, he gets dining room today, and so on and so forth. If the kids are really little than they can share a room with someone, but everyone has to participate. If someone starts goofing off within the time limit they get extra time added to their chore while the rest of us get to prop our feets up in that room and dictate to them what they should be doing like...."You missed a spot there, no there...nope, over there!" Boy does that drive them nuts and they do not seem to goof off the next day, but maybe next week it starts all over again, but they learn quickly to hate that.

Twenty minutes is not that much time, but you would be surprised how much you can do in that amount of time. Dusting, picking up things and putting them away, vacuuming, etc. I find it motivates my kids also not to mess the place up in the first place, ummm......sometimes.

So, put a little fun into your mundane routine & get the cleaning party started!



~V