Keen to Get Your Family to Help Around the House? A Step by Step Plan with Tips to Get Everyone on Board

It’s disheartening to see heaps of clothes stacked in a corner, dishes piled on the kitchen counter and layers of dust covering the furniture. You are often confused as to which corner to start from first when the entire house is cluttered and dirty! There are times when we all face such scenarios in our homes and no one would want to single-handedly clean the mess. This is the time when you expect the entire family to help you around the house and if everyone helps a bit, then the entire mess can be cleaned quickly and easily. And, no single person would have to get into the boring job of cleaning for hours.

Ok, before everyone starts to give excuses and nagging to not to get involved in the household work, you need to make them understand that this is their home too and they should also take some responsibility and do some work sharing with you. Secondly, you can tell them about the yummy dinner, which you are going to prepare tonight. So, they need to do some simple chores and that would allow you to have the extra time required for the preparation of their favourite recipes.

Your spouse is busy with his favourite match over TV and the kids are enjoying their holiday. Everyone needs a break, but so do you! Sometimes you may feel like doing it everything by yourself as your spouse and kids might not know the way it should be done and you don’t have the patience to educate them. Don’t feel guilty to ask for help and instead take the entire load on yourself, because if you are too tyred by the evening then the rest of the family wouldn't be able to enjoy. Plan something like an indoor game after lunch, a movie or a long drive in the evening and tell everyone that we need to finish the cleaning part and then we can enjoy the rest of the day.

Your spouse and kids, maybe not as efficient as you when it comes to home tasks as cleaning, stacking etc, but you can share the small secrets of house chores with them which you have practised and perfected over time. Cleaning is a trait which should be taught to children as for few, it doesn’t come naturally. Show your kids the right way to fold the clothes, keep the dirty clothes in the laundry bag, and stack the books properly in the shelf. Educate them to keep their shoes, apparels and toys in separate parts of their wardrobe. If required, use sticky, magnetic boards or pointers so that they would easily remember the next time. Similarly, you can show the easiest method of dusting or cleaning the kitchen sink to your spouse.

When you share a particular task with your family members, chances are that they might throw tantrums for not liking the chore. To deal with this struggle, offer two or three different tasks and let them choose the one which they would like to complete. Now give the remaining tasks to the other members and even if you are left with one of your least liked chores, you have some help to save the day.

To make the cleaning work smart and quick, turn it into a task and set a time limit. Make the cleaning process a fun game and the winner gets a chocolate (and everybody wins). Set a timer for 10 minutes; give a small part to clean with certain instructions like cleaning without breaking and stampede. Once your family members see that how much work can be done in just 10 minutes of teamwork, they would be more willing to help from the next time onwards and slowly this becomes a habit. So, the next time you’ll have a lesser mess to clean on any given day.

If the kids don’t like to broom or mop, use vacuum cleaner instead and a handle mop in place of a simple mop. Similarly, give them one dirty and one clean cloth along with a spray cleaner for dusting and cleaning. These tools and articles are effective and quick to sparkle every inch of your house in minutes. For stacking clothes, you can use a small storage box or a clothes arranger to keep different apparels separately in limited space. Similarly, old books or seldom-used articles can be packed in a cardboard box and stored in a separate shelf or inside a box bed.

Dividing the work in separate clean zones will save you from unnecessary sibling fights and the job will be done peacefully. It’s a good idea to hand over the kitchen zone to your husband, so he would be able to get a feel of the challenges faced by you daily. The kids can be given the charge of cleaning the bedrooms, changing the sheets and putting the dirty clothes in the laundry bag. Designate areas for each family member and give them the responsibility to keep the area clean for a week and next week you can rotate the work zones. This way, they will not find it a boring task and keeping their designated areas clean and tidy wouldn’t increase the workload on weekends.

Don’t try to do it all in a single day, else the family members might not be willing to cooperate fully and you’ll end up stuck with a half messed house. The dishes, clothes, dusting and washing should be on your priority list as they impact the day to day life. Similarly, a stained kitchen platform and stinking dustbin can drive you insane.

Talk to your family about the priority tasks like emptying the dust bin and changing the garbage bag, the dog fed on time and the clothes in wardrobes and not on the floor. You may keep the wardrobe cleaning, bed box cleaning and kitchen storage boxes cleaning etc. For a later day or you might take out half an hour from your everyday chores and finish them one at a time.

Having the kids help you around the house shouldn’t be an option, but a priority for you as there are various advantages when you ask the kids to help you with the chores of the house. You can educate them about the importance of discipline and cleaning while they are assisting you with different chores. Initially, you may feel like it’s easier to do it all by yourself rather than explaining something several times to your kids. But believe that this one-time painstaking task will give many benefits in the long run.

Doing a task all by himself and completing it perfectly boosts self-esteem in your kid. This gives a sense of accomplishment to them and helps him to become self-dependent for tomorrow. Kids also learn the importance of completing an assigned task in time, teamwork; and living in a clean and organized environment becomes a part of his habit.

You can start by simple tasks like asking the two-year-old to put the chocolate wrapper or fruit peels in the bin or to keep their scattered toys in a designated box. These simple habits start the foundation of doing their work and when they start going to school, you can give them more complex tasks like putting the dirty clothes in the laundry basket, keeping the dirty dishes in the kitchen sink and keeping their clothes and toys at the right place.

Doing their tasks inculcates traits like responsibility, confidence, cleanliness and ability to deal with challenges in children. The household chores when done by the entire family in participation makes the children feel that they are co-operating in the housework and are not being singled out for a particular task. They also understand the importance of giving back to parents by fulfilling the tasks provided to them.

Like adults, children also love to get paid for a job well done. Not necessarily in monetary terms, you can compensate them for small chores with smoothies, their favourite recipes, their favourite game or a city outing to their favourite destination. For teenagers, incentives in the form of shopping vouchers of their favourite brand or subscription to a music app etc. Can be used as incentives.

Be a role model and teach them the importance of discipline by keeping your work zone neat and tidy. This will encourage them to replicate the habits of their parents and they would also get in the habit of keeping their rooms arranged and their articles and books etc, in an organized manner. Make them realize that by proper time management, they will be able to complete their day to day activities easily while keeping their place clutter-free.

Kids shouldn’t feel like they are being ordered for some work or the chore is being imposed on them. Ask them how they would like to do a definite chore, do they think that it can be done in a better and easy manner, do they have any other idea to make the whole task quick. Children are creative and you wouldn’t believe the kind of ideas they can come up with to make things easier for you.

Giving different jobs to kids while cleaning and organizing the house imbibes a sense of being part of the ‘family team’ in them. Explain to them that he/she has been assigned the task as they are part of the family and like everyone, they also have certain responsibilities.

Why only kids, youngsters or spouse, you can take help of your parents or in-laws to help around the house by asking them to support in the easy to do tasks. Not only they will feel happy to help, but this would also make them feel important.

Choose simple tasks which can be done sitting at a place so that old age people don’t find any problem performing them. To start with, tasks, like cutting vegetables and fruits, brushing the dust off the old items, polishing the trophies and changing the table cover, are few chores which can be done by the elderly. You can also take their help for other small works like making grocery lists, communicating with relatives regarding the upcoming party, feeding the pet and taking care of the toddler while you are busy completing the other errands.

Not only the elderly can help you with small jobs, but you can also seek advice from them and learn the small tricks to do a particular work easily. They have already done those chores multiple times and most probably, they have a better idea to perform it smartly.

Once you have assigned them a task, be patient as they make take a bit longer than you to complete the work. Let them complete one chore and then ask them if they are comfortable, then assign a new task. You can also ask them to take a stroll and get some grocery items from the nearby store. This way, you can kill two birds with one stone.

If you can’t find a work which you think is apt for the elderly in your house, then you may ask them to supervise the kids or teenagers. While the kids are doing their chores, the elderly can monitor them and also advise them to do a work appropriately. This will save the time and energy of your kids and the elderly would also feel engaged while the entire family is helping around the house.