Do you need help cleaning? Do you want to teach your kids how to pick up after themselves? You can marry these ideas with a bit of strategy. You need to make cleaning fun for your children! Here are four fun games that turn cleaning with kids into fun.
The Sack Game
Image via Flickr by wuestenigel
Is your house a mess? Picking up is something kids hate to do, and you probably agree with them. Still, you can persuade your children to do it by turning the process into a game. Give your kids an empty sack. Tell them that the goal is to take stuff off the floor that doesn’t belong there. Then pay them a quarter for every item they have in their sacks at the end of the game.
You should also offer bonuses when your kids do a particularly good job. That way, you’re using positive reinforcement to make your children neater. They’ll earn more when they do a better job. So, it’s an introduction to capitalism, too!
Fun With Colors
Another way to get your kids to pick up their stuff is the color game. Tell them that you want to play, and then describe the rules. When you say a color, the kids have to pick up something with that color. As a parent, you can rig this game. You know which junk you want picked up, so keep saying those colors until your kids grab them. Just like that, they’ve won the game. Meanwhile, you have a cleaner floor!
The Ticking Clock
A countdown clock has a strange effect on people. It makes them work faster for fear of not finishing a task before the timer expires. You can take advantage of this behavior while teaching your kids how to clean.
Tell your kids that they have to clean up their rooms by a certain time. If they finish the job satisfactorily enough for you, they get some sort of reward. You can make it money, a treat, or something that the kids pick for themselves. Then, start the timer and watch them go. You’ve given them incentive to clean their room.
Have a Chore Draft
Something else you can try is turning the cleaning of your house into a schoolyard game of picking teams. You and your kids will write a list of chores. You should pick some that are less fun than others. Kids like things that let them interact with their toys, even when they work. They hate anything that involves garbage or the bathroom, so add those to the list, too.
Then decide who gets to pick first. As the adult, you should use your selections for the harder chores. For example, you want to take care of wiping down the walls and fans. You need to reduce the allergens in your home, so you should pick dusting. After everyone has a few chores, grade the draft to see how everyone did. Who ended up with the hardest chores as opposed to the fun ones?
You love playing with your children. You also want a clean home. Using the four tips above, you can achieve both goals!