How to teach our children to clean the house. Here are 3 parenting tips.

When our children are babies, we do everything for them. After all, they're innocent babies that do need us. But as they become toddlers, preschoolers, and eventually teenagers, we still do a lot, including deciding to clean the house ourselves. Well, there are ways we can encourage our children and partners to help us clean the house, so let's explore them!

1. Focus on one thing a day.

Cleaning the entire house in one day is a chore no one wants to do on their two days off. And because busy lives don't always allow us to do things on the weekdays, it almost seems there is no other way. But there is! Set aside 20 minutes daily to focus on one thing and tackle the cleaning duties. You can make Monday the day you clean a bathroom, Tuesday the day you change the bedding, Wednesday the day you dust and vacuum, and so on and so forth. Whatever works for you, do that! To keep things organized, you can implement a chore system rewarded by items from their universal wish list, such as Wishfinity.

2. Divide duties.

Lessen the load by creating a chart that assigns chores to each household member. Remember, if your children are under 8, you can leave the most challenging tasks like vacuuming, doing laundry, and cleaning the showers to yourself or your spouse. But don't hesitate to give your children chores like taking out the trash, clearing the table, wiping down the counters, and cleaning up the living room. 

3. Don't micromanage!

We often want our children and partners to help us clean the house but don't know how. When they offer help, the cleanliness level does not always meet our expectations. So what do we do? We decide to do it ourselves. STOP! By placing all of the responsibility on ourselves, we're depriving those around us –particularly our children—of the opportunity to contribute and gain the self-esteem and confidence that comes with having responsibility. In short—allow them to help you clean the house. Children are willing to help more than we could expect, but we need to let them the space to do that without being criticized.