How She Teaches Kids to Clean
Teaching children to clean is a daunting task, whether we have one child or 13. In this episode, we talk about how to teach kids to clean, with an emphasis on what jobs different moms expect their children to do, how they train their children to do these jobs, and what systems they use, including Emily’s system.
Links mentioned in this episode:
Why I Don’t Make My Kids Do Chores (https://www.mother.ly/parenting/why-i...)
Books:
The Parenting Breakthrough, by Merrilee Boyack (https://www.amazon.com/Parenting-Brea...)
Blog Posts:
Power of Families: Two Tips for a Clean and Happy Home (https://poweroffamilies.com/two-tips-...)
Mentoring Our Own: The Remedy to Chore Wars (https://mentoringourown.com/the-remed...)
Podcasts:
Edit Your Life Podcast, episode 149: How to Teach Kids Life Skills (http://www.edityourlifeshow.com/episo...)
Moms Who Know Podcast, December 17, 2017: Donna Goff: Family Work (https://momswhoknowpodcast.com/2017/1...)
NPR, Weekend Edition: How to Get Your Kids to Do Chores (Without Resenting It) (https://www.npr.org/sections/goatsand...)
Family Looking Up, Episode 41: How To Raise Kids to Be Independent Adults, with Merrilee Boyack (http://familylookingup.com/2018/08/07...)
Other Links:
Song For a Fifth Child
100 Life Skills You Can Teach Your Kids in Five Minutes or Less (https://drive.google.com/file/d/1LWbd...)
Full text:
At the moment, Emily Widdison is a mother to 13 children. This number fluctuates because she is a foster mom, but nine of those 13 are permanently hers. Mothering this many little people has a whole host of logistical challenges, not the least of which is keeping the house clean. And yet she does—for the most part. Or more accurately, they all do.
She started her current chore system about six years ago, when she went from four children to eight, all nine years old and under, including a brand-new baby. One morning after the kids left the house for school, the kitchen was just trashed, and she realized she couldn’t do this herself. So later that day, she sat her kids down and said, “I need help. It can’t be just one little job or just your room.” And the kids stepped up.“
Today’s episode is “How She Teaches Kids to Clean,” a daunting task whether we have one child at home or 13. Once I started researching, I realized what a monumental topic this is, so I’m splitting it up into three episodes: this one, about teaching kids to clean, another about how to teach kids to be tidy, and a third entitled “How She Motivates Kids to Work.”
In this first episode, we’ll talk about how to teach kids to clean, with an emphasis on what jobs different moms expect their children to do, how they train their children to do these jobs, and what systems they use, including Emily’s system.
As always, I love a good controversy, and there’s plenty here. I have run across several articles written by mothers who don’t believe in giving their kids chores —even one that said that making children clean is tantamount to child abuse. I’ll link to a few of those articles in the show notes, if you’re interested, but for now, I’ll just give a brief rundown of their arguments:
1. Let kids be kids. They have the rest of their lives to work.
2. Mundane household tasks are much easier to learn when kids are older. They’ll figure it out.
3. Kids should still have to pick up after themselves, clean up toys, and bring their plates over, just not do extra things like washing dishes, doing laundry, and scrubbing toilets.
Many of these moms in the no-chores camps were raised with no chores themselves, and they not only turned out alright but they run a household capably now.
If this is your philosophy, I still love you, but it doesn’t make for a very useful podcast episode, because the only tip for that strategy is: Don’t make your kids clean. So the rest of this episode will be based on the assumption that kids should be doing work around the house.
Strategy
First, let’s talk about strategy. If you’re new here, I always start each topic by talking about strategy and objectives. What are you trying to accomplish here? When it comes to teaching kids to clean, some obvious objectives are to:
1. Train kids to take care ...
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