Kid-ding Around with Housework – 2

When you see your kids doing their chores willingly, praise them. If you do this often enough, eventually, doing housework will become a habit. Do not be discouraged if your child doesn’t seem to catch on quickly enough. Learning m

Earns making mistakes. Be patient. The few minutes you spend training a two-year-old may save hours of having to pick up later after a twelve-year-old.

Go easy on the scolding. Threatening or spanking children will not make them look forward to housework; they end up resenting it, as well as you. The right way to motivate your children is to praise them for their efforts, however child-like or clumsy they may be.

Devise a system of rewards – not necessarily financial – to make your kids feeling that their efforts are appreciated. While it will benefit your child and boost his ego, you, their parents, will have responsible, independent children who will look at housework as a normal part of their routine – as normal as playing without you nagging them.

The idea, “How to Get Kids to Help at Home”, is to “work yourself out of a job”. Your child should be able to make good judgments, evaluate and plan, be an active participant in running the home, and solve problems reasonably well. If you can count on her to make good choices and run her life well, you will have done your job as a parent.

It is possible to achieve a happy balance between you and your kids: it’s just a matter of using imaginative strategies, combined with a lot of patience.