To ease the transition into preschool this year, all the parents were asked to stay in class for an hour of the first day. I watched Mazzy sit quietly during storytime, lose her mind (in a good way) over art supplies and start the three-year-old version of small talk with her new friends. "I like pink. Do you like pink?" "No!!!!! That's MY crayon!!!!" You know, that sort of thing.
BUT. The thing that totally blew me away was something that happened after snack time.
When each kid was done with their snack, they were instructed to take their plates and cups over to the kitchen area, spill out the rest of their drink in the sink and then load their dishes in the dishwasher.
Not only that. Mazzy seemed GENUINELY EXCITED to do it. As if loading a dishwasher was an exclusive grown-up affair to which she'd always dreamed of receiving an invite.
Dear Mazzy,
You are cordially invited to clear your own plates and put them in the dishwasher! Look forward to seeing you there!
Love, Mom
I'm going to be honest. I kind of suck at getting my three-year-old to clean up after herself.
First of all, it didn't even occur to me that I could be assigning her household tasks. Secondly, I rarely even make her put away her toys because I'm so busy trying to get her to go to sleep before her "window" closes that it's just easier to put them away myself after she's already in bed.
Clearly, this is less than exceptional parenting.
After the class, I was determined to make Mazzy start doing her share around the house. I'd start small. With the dishwasher, since she had already learned to do it.
Then I realized I would have to unload the clean dishes so that Mazzy could load her dirty ones, but that was impossible because Harlow has recently learned how to climb up onto the open dishwasher drawer and identify the closest steak knife.
The next day, Mazzy was eating an apple squeezie on the couch. "I'm done!!!!!" she called, holding the empty package up high, without looking away from her iPad.
This is usually my cue to drop whatever I am doing, run to relieve my daughter of the trash currently cramping her style and hand deliver it to the garbage myself.
"Mazzy. You know where the garbage is. Throw it out."
"Noooo!!!!!"
That's when I decided to change my tactic.
"Hey, Mazzy. The garbage train is coming. Choo Chooooo!!!"
Mazzy looked over at me with a curious smile. She is obsessed with trains.
"Chugga chugga chugga chugga…" I repeated as I danced over to her doing a little train move with my arms. (Please don't picture it. This story is embarrssing enough.)
"What's the garbage train???" Mazzy was intrigued.
"The garbage train takes trash to the garbage. All aboard! Let's go!!!"
Mazzy stood up. Oh my god. This was working!!! Could it be this easy?!
"Can I go on your back?"
Wait.
"What?"
"Can I ride the garbage train on your back, Mom?"
"Just walk behind me. You can put your hands on my hips like a train."
"I want to ride the garbage train on your back, Mom!"
Crap. She was excited. I didn't want to blow it.
"Okay, fine."
I let her climb onto my back and then we piggybacked over to the garbage to throw out the empty apple squeezie package together.
It did occur to me that instead of carrying a 0.2oz empty squeezie over to the garbage myself in five seconds, I had now carried 33lbs (plus 0.2oz) after a ten minute song and dance.
Not exactly efficient clean-up.
But it did make me realize that making cleaning fun could be very effective. I did some searching online to see if I could find any other ideas. I found six…
1. Tape a square on the floor and make a game out of sweeping all the crumbs inside it.
2. Pretend the carpet is an ocean and all the toys will drown if your child doesn't save them first.
3. Make matching socks a game of "Go Fish". (This sounds like it might take five years but as long as everyone is having fun…)
4. Tell the story of "The Toy Fairy", who visits every night and assumes the toys left out on the floor were meant for her.
5. Leave a prize hidden in the mess as a reward for helping clean.
6. Have the Tooth Fairy threaten them for you. (Also effective— Santa.)
Letter written by Non-Stop Mom
Now these ideas are mostly about helping kids put stuff away. But can they actually assist with the dirty stuff that goes beyond just tidying up?
Well, if you are going to hand over a cleaning product to your three-year-old, she will probably be more excited by fun spritzers and pumps than a box of powdered dishwashing detergent. Plus, you probably don't want your kids around anything you'd be afraid of them ingesting.
Which brings me to Method and their "clean happy" initiative.
All of Method's products are designed by moms and dads to be easy to use, like the power foam dish soap in a spray bottle, laundry detergent in a one-handed pump, and refill bags with a handle and an easy-pour spout.
The fun colors don't hurt either.
They've got bathroom cleaner for little boys with bad aim, all purpose cleaner for finger painting incidents, and squirt + mop wood cleaner for toddlers who want to help clear the dinner table.
Their products tackle grease and grime just as well (and sometimes better than) conventional cleaners, even though Method's products are all non-toxic and made without dirty ingredients like parabens, phthalates and animal by-products.
AND.
They are giving away a year's supply of cleaning products on the Method facebook page this month.
Over the next week, I am going to be experimenting with getting Mazzy to "clean happy" around the house, by trying some of the strategies/games/products listed above.
Then I'll report back on what worked and what didn't.
If you have any ideas that you use to make cleaning fun for your kids, please tell me in the comment section below. Maybe I'll test some of yours as well!
PS: Do you think I could get my husband to believe in the Clothes Fairy? She's been eyeing the growing pile of gym clothes next to Mike's side of the bed.
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This post was sponsored by Method but I've been working with them for two years and truly adore their products and the company. How could you not love a company that would make the video below?
Fun fact: All the people in the ad, with the exception of the guy with the guitar, are Method employees and their kids. I'm pretty sure the guy dancing with the dark hair at :12 is one of the two founders.
Um. It never occurred to you to assign household tasks? That’s WHY I HAD KIDS.
Matching the socks is a favourite but takes forever. Learning rather than efficiency for sure. “Who can tidy ten toys the fastest?” has worked on occasion except when I get distracted and win. After a particularly messy painting session this summer when post-handwash the sink looked like one of the works of art my son nearly fell down with excitement when I said yes to his request that could he please clean the sink. Letting him include cleaning the taps was like giving him a gift. Who knew? He was soaking but the sink never sparkled so much… Must get that going again!
Quinn has started saying “Mama get it!” if I ask her to go get something (shoes, her water, snack, etc). What we started doing was saying “I bet I can get there faster!” and pretending to race. She’ll run all the way to wherever it is and I don’t have to take more than the initial step. That’s also how we get her to the bathroom to brush her teeth, except we actually follow her (and sometimes win) then because we need to brush too and get her toothbrush ready.
The most important thing to remember when having young ones “help” with clean up is that even though it doesn’t always work and sometimes it does take ten times longer than it would have without their help, (okay here is the important part) it encourages them to continue to help and eventually that “help” will turn into ACTUAL help. Somethings will already actually be helpful now, but be sure to continue to praise them for the help that isn’t so helpful now. As a mother of teenagers, I can attest to the fact that it pays off later. 🙂
Our daughter has been cleaning her own room, including making her own bed since she was four. Not just cleaning, but organizing the toys into the right bins, putting the dirty clothes in the laundry room AND hanging/folding her own clean laundry. She also puts away her own dirty dishes. She seemed like she really wanted to help us out and loves to do it. She wasn’t very fond of picking up her toys at first (it was definitely a process)and we would just choose a specific thing like “find all the barbie dolls and put those away or lets find everything that is the color red and put it away first, etc” and that helped. Once it became more about not WANTING to clean even though she knew how to do is when we got tough. Anything that was left on the floor became mine and daddy’s for a week or until she was really really good. That made her change her tune very fast! The laundry thing was never an issue. She sees us do our own and wanted to help fold our things and I told her that biggest way she could help was by showing us how well she could do her own. Worked wonders.
OH I forgot to say that it may not look pretty at first and not at the level that you could do by yourself, but you can’t fix it! If you fix it they’ll think they didn’t do a good enough job and it may discourage them! Sometimes I could “show” her how it should look and walk her through the process to make it a bit neater and now when its clean its almost as perfect as when I do it myself. I’m thinking about buying one of those tiny vacuums for her to vacuum up her crumbs at dinner since she keeps telling me to clean the floor because its dirty…well little lady that isn’t my mess! haha. Good luck!
I want ways to make cleaning fun for me! Forget the kids! I may need to have the tooth fairy write me a letter.
Such great ideas! My daughter is only 11 months, but she already likes to ‘help’ us fold laundry when she’s surrounded by it on our bed. She’s also good at pulling everything out of her drawer and then we ‘clean up’ by throwing it all back in the drawer (I try to redirect her to the socks and diaper covers though vs. the stuff that’s actually folded like her shirts etc haha). I figure kids like to model our behaviour, so why not start early? We brush our teeth together, we eat together and brush our hair together, why not do the boring stuff too!
PAY YOUR KID $100 TO CLEAN THEIR OWN ROOM? LOL My jaw hit the ground…Never, ever gonna happen. I’ll do rewards, like you can have a friend spend the night when your room is clean…but I’m not paying my kid for cleaning up a mess they made!
I’m with others… why have kids unless you can make them do chores you don’t want to do! I think I’d die if I had to take the garbage to the curb or take the dog for a walk!
BTW… I’m totally being sarcastic about that last part… I don’t want to get jumped all over for breeding slave labor.
We do a 20 minute clean-up. I set the oven timer, put on some fast music and they clean their brains out! You will be amazed at how clean things can get in 20 minutes. I started this when they were 2 & 5, now they are 11 & 14 and have regular chores and clean their room, too! They also know how to do a load of laundry, cook a simple meal, and load and unload the dishwasher! P.S. they are BOYS!
My 14 month old daughter thinks its so fun and a game to “steal” a dishcloth off the table and scrub the floor or the coffee table with it lol. She also helps me pack away toys and books because I do it frequently throughout the day and make it fun and sing a bit of a song while doing it.
I don’t really have any tips on making cleaning more fun, but I have always expected my daughter to clean up after herself since she was probably 2. Kids love contributing and I think it is important to start them early. My daughter will turn 4 in February. She helps load/unload the dishwasher, dusts, takes her dirty dishes to the kitchen, throws out her trash, and picks up her toys. She now asks me if she can sweep the floors and help me with other cleaning duties. I don’t believe in tricking kids into doing things or rewarding them for expected behavior, but that is just me and what works in our house. You will be surprised at what kids can do when you encourage them to help out!
I have been exceptionally lucky in getting a 2 1/2 year old who not only cleans when I ask him to, but also takes the initiative *before* I ask him to. That being said, I highly doubt my youngest (7 months) will also be that neat. Keeping that in mind, my mom used to hide marshmallows under some of the toys, and challenge us to see if we could find them while we were cleaning up. Another one of her go-to’s were chore charts, with colorful/shiny/scented stickers that were only obtained once we finished the chore. I’ve also found (thanks to the previously mentioned mr. neat) that they make a ton of “cleaning implements” such as brooms, vacuums etc. in toddler size. (I found that out because he was desperate to use my broom, and I didn’t want my eyeballs taken out).
True story – my 4 year old got $50 for her birthday in July. We went to Walmart so she could buy whatever she wanted.
She bought a broom. Actually let me clarify – she INSISTED that the ONLY thing she wanted – while standing in the middle of toy-and-book-and-cute-clothes-explosion-heaven – was a broom.
When we searched high and low but could not find a toy cleaning set, to alleviate her disappointment over such a simple request, I managed to find a broom that adjusted to kid height in the regular cleaning supply section.
I have yet to see her face beam with joy and pride as much as it did that day. It cost much less than $50 but she refused to purchase anything else as the ONLY thing that mattered was the fact she had a broom.
My only explanation to this phenomena? Reverse psychology. When cleaning, I would actively try to make my children LEAVE the room, NOT touch any cleaning supplies and refuse to let them join in … and so then it became The Best Thing EVER That Needed Multiple Begging To Join In On.
Will this last forever? Probably not. But for now – I have a 4 year old who’s biggest joy in life is pushing “her very own broom!” around my laminated floors so can hardly complain …
My 5 year old has been obsessed with Mickey Mouse Clubhouse for a long time… So we pretend he is Mickey in his clubhouse and it is very messy. Then we get to clean it up! Usually it helps.
Make cleaning sound like a fun reward. My husband once excitedly said, “Whoever finishes their food first gets to do the dishes!” And my then 5 and 7 year old actually fought over who got to do the dishes. That only works the first time though, coz then they’ll remember how tedious and boring the task can be. Afterwards you just have to put the rules down firmly. Like “those who can’t clean up their toys will have no toys at all.” Or my favorite, “those who don’t do their chores will be given away to another family.” Something along those lines…
love this comment 🙂
Even better than me claiming the toys that get left out, the dog gets free reign over whatever is left out. Of course it means you’ll have to get a dog, but one chewed up video game controller that isn’t replaced was enough to train my husband!
I’ve already convinced my son (18 months) that loading the dishwasher is fun, and putting away toys.. oh boy! that’s a ball! And I strategically get him toys that resemble cleaning methods. You may consider it bad parenting but I consider it genius parenting.
I listen to books on MP3 on my phone. Audible is a great source for them. Makes my yuckiest tasks a bit more fun AND I can listen while paying attention to kids. Nothing better than a good book in my ear while I pretend to watch the same episode of Mickey Mouse Club House with my 3 year old for the 200th time!
When I want my daughter to put something away I say “let’s time you to see how fast you can do it” then she takes off and I start counting, then you just have to “remember” the time to get them to do it again. “You put your shoes away in 34 seconds last time, do you think you can beat that time? Ready go!” She loves it. And bonus, if she doesn’t beat her time she wants to try again and put something else away, score!
Pretty sure that tooth-fairy letter is from Non Stop Mom, and not everything funny…
Great advice! (My wife says it works on husbands as well…)
The quickest way that I ever got my 5 year old to clean his room was by accident. His baby brother got the stomach flu and I told him that the baby might get sick on his toys so he better move them. I never saw those toys get picked up off the floor quicker than that! I didn’t intend for him to clean up in such a panic, but it sure did work!
Thanks hon!
As a nanny, I tricked the kids into cleaning by turning it into a color/alphabet game. I’d either have all the kids clean up all the same color toys or assign each kid a specific color. For older kids, I’d assign a letter and they would pick up all items that began with that letter.
I always want to smack myself about the head when I realize, “holy cow, the kids could totally be doing this for me,” which is invariably followed by, “WHY DID I NOT START THIS WHEN THEY WERE IN PRESCHOOL?!”
I say take that dishwasher enthusiasm and run with it.
my kids empty the dishwasher of their own dishes. I put them in a really low cabinet they can reach and labeled everything with pictures. Mostly though, I yell and threaten then with throwing everything except school uniforms and books away if they don’t clean up. For example, if she can’t throw away her juice bx, then we just won’t buy juice boxes anymore. sooo saaad!
My 4 and 2 year old have to tidy up all their toys every afternoon before they’re allowed any screen time. This motivates them but it also helps me not to get antsy if they’re slow or get distracted and start playing with the toys because that equals less screen time which is a good thing! Usually I coach them for the final bits and pieces but my 4 year old especially now actually notices mess and is proud of himself when he has tidied up. I also find it much easier on my sanity to get them to tidy up one activity before they start on the next one. ‘Sure, you can play with the play dough as soon as the pens are put away’ Now I just need to relax enough to give them each a scrubbing brush and turn them loose in the bathroom…
V has become obsessed with her piggy bank, so we’re capitalizing on that by implementing a chore chart. She already likes being a “helper” to us with little chores she can do herself, so we figure money is an added incentive (at least it always is for me!).
I could not stop laughing at the “garbage cramping her style” comment!! I had to read it to my husband, because this is sooooo true in my house!
My mother got my sister and I help her spread mulch in the garden by pretending we were doing open heart surgery on the mulch bags and pulling out all the guts. Sounds morbid…but wicked fun (and obviously memorable). My dad got us to do the dishes at a young age by saying, “go do the dishes.” Both tactics worked, what can I say? My wee one is only 4 months, but I’m brewing up some creative ideas already. Not sure if I’m going to use Grey’s Anatomy-related themes…the jury is still out on that one.
[…] it’s as simple as asking your child, especially a young child, to sweep all the crumbs inside a taped-off square on the floor, or to put all of these toys in a box or bin (as fast as possible perhaps maybe […]