Get Your Kids Excited About Cleaning- Ideas and a Chore Calendar!

Get Your Kids Excited About Cleaning- Ideas and a Chore Calendar!

Getting your kids to participate in cleaning can feel like a chore in and of itself, if not an outright battle. The trick to it lies in finding ways to get them excited about cleaning. It’s like that saying about doing something you love and never working another day in your life; only in this case, it’s more like, “Get your kids passionate about cleaning, and you'll never have to listen to them whine about it again."

But how do you do it, and how can a chore calendar help?

Ideas to Get Your Kids Excited for Cleaning

Turn it Into a Game

Full disclosure: This hack works as well for adults as it does for kids. Almost anything is more enjoyable if you make a game out of it, cleaning included. Making cleaning less of a "chore," with that dragging and negative tone, and more of a "game," with all the fun and positivity that comes with games, will excite them more about cleaning.

Feel free to come up with cleaning games that work for your house, but some of our favorites include:

• Swiffer races

• Setting up an over-the-door basketball hoop so clothes go in the hamper instead of on the floor.

• The cleanest bathroom or tidiest room gets bragging rights (or an actual prize).

• The magic piece game (Find a single item in the house that needs tidying, putting away, or cleaning). Write that on a piece of paper and hide it. Tell your kids that you’ve chosen a magic piece that needs to be tidied, put away, or cleaned, and whoever does win a prize. They have five minutes, and GO!)

Get Weird with It

Another fun adult and kid-friendly hack are that chores are less mind-numbing and soul-destroying when you add an element of the strange or zany to it.

Hate washing dishes? Do it in your favorite superhero costume, and it's not quite so bad. Despise standing in the laundry room folding clothes? Fold them on the front lawn! Sweeping is the most boring chore on the face of the planet? Not when you’re listening to the entire Disney soundtrack, it’s not!

Finding zany and fun ways to add excitement to chores and encouraging your kids to come up with their own suggestions can make it easier to convince kids to do it.

Make Positive Behaviors a Big Deal

The last time you did something right your boss just kind of shrugged and said, "Yeah, so? That's what I expect you to do anyway". How did you feel? Were you inclined to hop up and do it again right away? Or maybe you felt somewhat underwhelmed by their non-reaction.

A little bit of encouragement can go a long way in motivating anyone, but kids are especially sensitive to encouragement. Heap the “wows” and “good jobs!” on them when they do a good job. When they start undertaking some of these cleaning chores by themselves, without being prompted, let them see how blown away and excited you are. This will make them feel like they’re doing the right thing, making them more likely to do it again.

And leave the negative happiness out of it. Stuff like, “Oh, look who decided to do the dishes,” or “Are you running a fever? Well, that’s the only explanation for you actually tidying your room,” or “Has our son been body snatched? No? Well then who is taking out the trash right now?” does more harm than good, and will make your kids shy away from doing chores so they don’t have to do it again.

Chore Calendar

Chore calendars and charts help teach kids responsibility and time management and that chores will always be around (and usually aren't all that hard to get done in the first place)

We’ve attached our version of a chore calendar below with some basic chores that can be good for kids to get a passion for chores. We left the last two empty so you could devise whatever duties work best for your family.

Start a Lifelong Habit

Teaching kids about cleaning, from how to do it to how easy it really is, sets them up for a lifelong habit of being that much more prepared to clean in their daily lives. Sure, you’ll benefit from it while they're living in your house, but this excitement can follow them through to the rest of their lives.

At TNT Group Janitorial + Building Solutions, we believe in setting people up for success. That's why we've created a cleaning and management company to help you with every aspect of sprucing up and building management. For more information on how we help visit our website.