Children learn by helping around the house. If you struggle to get your child to do chores as most parents do, these tips for making household chores fun may be just what you need. By making helping at home more fun, your kids will be more likely complete their chores with a great attitude.
Making Chores Fun
Finding fun and easy ways to make cleaning fun can be difficult. Cleaning and doing chores can be quite boring, making it hard to get motivated to get them done. By thinking outside of the box, completing these tasks can be made fun.
Individualise The Chores
In order to make chores fun for your kids, try to have them help with chores that are suitable for their age and ability. Keep easier chores for your younger children, or helping them with slightly harder tasks until they are able to achieve them on their own.
Play Games
It’s actually much easier to turn chores into games than you may realise. This is also a great way to get your kid more excited. Try turning picking up trash into a scavenger hunt, or create a list of items that need to be picked up and put away. Set a timer and have children put away as many items on the list as they can.
When needing to match pairs of things such as socks, try turning it into a competition to see who can get the most pairs matched or try playing a game of ‘fish,’ to match the socks.
Create Rewards
You don’t have to pay an allowance to your child to make incentives for helping around the house. Try a rewards system for your children that involves extra screen time, treats they like, or stickers. It all depends on your child’s age, interests, and likes. The child with the most stickers at the end of the week can pick the movie the family is going to watch on the weekend.
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Encouragement
Your child is much more likely to get things done if you’re encouraging, helping, or engaging in the process as well. Positive reinforcement for a job well done is absolutely amazing. Or, try to take time to help alongside them complete a chore, talking about things that they enjoy while working.
Listen to Music or a Book
Turn a cleaning session into a dance party. Turn on some music, set up the speakers and off you go, grooving around the house as you clean.
Or maybe, try putting on a favourite audio book and listen to it as you clean.
Add Some Imagination
Kids see things far differently than we do, especially little ones. Add some imagination to the to-do list by spinning stories or missions into the activity. Another fun activity, is to have them pretend to be something or someone else while they clean up.
Make it Flexible
No matter what, kids will be kids. They’ll get bored of the same chore list or routine. Make the lists and timing more flexible. Add break time in between longer cleaning or working sessions. Try to switch up what chores each child has completed. This also helps with increasing their skills as well.
Set a Good Example
Teach your children to enjoy helping and to take pride in their accomplishments. More often than not, they just need someone to help them get started. Yes, you will need some patience, especially when showing younger children how to complete tasks. By starting slow, when they are young, they are able to build good habits of putting things away immediately and cleaning up after themselves.
Have you ever tried any of these? Hopefully at least one of these tips can help you to get some ideas to help motivate your children to get their chores done. It may not always work; kids grow up and approaches have to change as they grow.
Grab a free printable chore chart by clicking the link below: