I’ve put off writing on this topic because it overlaps with parenting—an intimate subject with high stakes.
I am treading lightly because we all know that what might work in the alchemy between one parent and one child doesn’t always translate to another parent/child pair.
But I’m absolutely willing to share what I’m working on and what’s working for us currently.
As a mom with very young kids, I know that all messes will either be cleaned by 1) a parent, or 2) a parent who is teaching and doing alongside a child.
This is a ton of work. And we’d all do well to give ourselves some slack.
The positive thing about being intent on teaching your children to clean and doing it alongside them is that it slows down the whole process. I know there are just some days we are not going to get to everything. There are many days that we clean nothing. I accept this as a healthy limit. I do not expect myself to storm the house and clean everything up at the end of every day.
There are two daily chores that my older kids (5 and 7) can do and are expected to do: 1) Clear their dinner dishes. And 2) put away their clean laundry in their clothes bins. Actually the 2-year-old delights in mimicking them and can usually do these too.
Anything beyond these two chores will require more modeling and coaching from a parent.
“Mommy, I’m not trying to make a mess, I’m just playing,” my daughter once said to me.
This was a couple of years ago. It was a lightbulb moment for me. Knowing my personal desire for tidiness, I felt terrible that she felt discouraged from play. This made me double down on not cleaning up after the kids but always doing it alongside them.
Now, when I want to tidy the toys, I tell them that we take care of things because we’re grateful for them. (Anything they don’t care enough to clean up will go away for a little while.)
It has always been a part of our weekend routine to have the kids do one hour of quiet playtime by themselves each day. They also know that they have to clean up their play things before they can move onto the next: which is TV. Major incentive! They know that they can get started on their own and it might go quicker or they can wait for me and I’m happy to help them. More often than not they choose to do it on their own but sometimes if they need extra connection or motivation they ask me and I’m happy to help.
In my next newsletter I’ll share a simple way that library books have introduced my kids to the idea of “Decluttering” :)
Happy Monday, folks!