If you want to be a Superwoman, for your children and at home, you need to be organized. I don’t think I am a clean freak (don’t ask my husband) but I feel quickly depressed if I live in a messy and dirty home. When my son was about 2 years old, he loved cleaning the floor with the broom, or I should say play with the broom. But this was just an ephemeral hobby!
Whether you are a stay-at-home mom or a working mom, household chores should not all be yours. What role model would you be for your kids if you were the only one in the family in charge of them? And don’t you think it would be a good example of team work to organize household chores among each family member?
The Basics
I experimented several methods with my children (and my husband). My goal has always been to encourage my kids’ autonomy and accountability. I wish they will know how to get organized on their own and how to live in a group or in a family without being a burden for others. So, how to motivate them to participate to house cleaning without being a cop? The idea is to make the organization and their participation visible to all. And use a reward system. And you will see their satisfied face when they accomplished their tasks!
Here are the best methods that worked for my family. There are others for sure, but I’d rather talk about the ones I know…
Household Chores Chart with Post-It Notes
This chart is based on the Scrum Board, for those who know Agile Scrum framework, and those who know me personally will probably see a professional tic, because it is indeed a board I use with my teams at work. Anyway, now, I use it at home for the weekly house cleaning. The goal is to make it a collective ‘timeboxed’ activity so that you won’t spend all your weekend cleaning for the sake of everyone!
- Define with your family the list of chores to clean the house
- Ask your kids to each chore on a post-it note
- Agree on a realistic goal all together, like complete cleaning before noon!
Stick as many charts as you need in your kitchen. Each one picks one or several tasks and sticks them on the own chart, in the TO DO column. When someone starts his/her tasks, he/she moves it to IN PROGRESS, and when it is completed, how proud he/she will be to move it to COMPLETED!!!
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Daily Chore Chart
Some of the household chore needs to be done daily, like emptying the dishwasher. There are several options to manage daily chores. You can either make a rigid schedule with one different person assigned to the chore each day. It works well with young kids.
Or you can try to trust your family members – let’s say you have (pre-)teens now – and you would like them to volunteer and take turns.
In that case, ask them to write down their name on the chart when they volunteer to empty the dishwasher, the goal being that a different person volunteers each day and it should be balanced between each family member.
It is a more flexible organization. It requires some maturity to play those rules though. And it encourages more volunteering than obeying the rules and more consciousness about others and taking turns.
What about you ?
Are there any method you experimented and that worked for you?
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