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Five Ways To Get Your Kids Involved

One of my very favorite things as a mom is watching my kids’ eyes light up when they’ve learned how to do something new. The number one way that you can educate your children is through cleaning. It’s so simple and you’re already doing it over and over again, which gives your kids a great opportunity. 

I know it seems ridiculous, but to be good roommates one day is such a blessing. Whether or not you have boys or girls, the idea of them becoming good housemates with their spouses, and their children impact them far more than you’re probably even thinking right now. But it’s the beauty of what teaching actually does. So, if you’re not already infusing your children into all of the cleaning and tidying up, you need to start. I know sometimes you just want to avoid conflict. 

Here are my five tips to be able to help you as the leader of these small humans. Maybe they’re even big humans, maybe they’re teenagers, maybe they’re much older than that, but they’re still smaller than you in a lot of ways. This is the way that you’re going to lead them.

Number One: Do Not Assign Chores

I don’t believe in chores. And it’s funny that I say that because I have a whole podcast episode on there. If you want to know more about it, go into the Facebook group and type chores into the search bar. Our Facebook group is completely searchable and it will blow your mind the stuff that you can learn just by a category. You can also go into the podcast vault, which is linked in the Facebook group, and you can see all of our podcast episodes grouped by category.

Here’s the thing, when you start assigning chores to children, it takes all of their internal motivation out of helping you. It removes this intrinsic reward of, I just did something really cool and mom got excited, mom rewarded me, and it doesn’t matter what age they are. I have nieces and nephews that are grown, and I see this happen in them. I also see this happen in people that I mentor that are younger than me. And I have coached in athletics for many years, and you can see a person that is being mentored completely light up whenever you’ve taken the time to tell them good job. 

This is truly about not forcing them to do the thing, but instead involving them and making it something that they feel that they’ve done well. It’s just a major psychology switch here. 

Two Categories

I always get asked the question. So then what about all the things that they actually do have to do? Here are my two categories for this. 

No, I don’t assign chores because there are certain responsibilities that we all have in this house to be good housemates, end of story. It’s not about because you’re a part of my family or you will get, well then I don’t want to be a part of this family. That’s not my thing. 

But that’s not what we’re doing. We are housemates and in order to share this sink, bathtub, laundry, and everything else. That means if it’s shared, the responsibilities are shared. That’s it. 

Now, I do choose to give my children the opportunity to level up into things outside of what they’re capable of doing at every age and get paid for it. And I don’t call it a chore. They get to choose if they want to do that work, earn the money, and then manage their money the way that Blaine and I believe money should be managed. 

That is how we are infusing entrepreneurship into our children. Look at what your skillsets are from ages four, five, and six. We’ve started this with our kids all the way at Frankie’s nine and we’re still doing it. 

Number Two: Make It Fun

Tip number two, which is actually tip number five in the previous post. But tip number two for you here is to make it fun. 

If your kids aren’t having fun, it’s not going to fly. So all of the music, all of the dancing, all of the things, make it fun. Make a game out of it. Make a race out of it. Whatever you need to do to make it fun, do the things that they like. 

Number Three: Use Your Kids’ Strengths

See what they’re good at, and then do that thing with them, the whole, oh my gosh, I can’t believe how well you just made the bed. I don’t even do it that well. That will light them up and make them want to come back and do it again. That’s what’s going to start to build this enthusiasm and excitement. 

It’s a shared experience and you’re so busy all the time and they’re so distracted all the time. They are craving connection with their mother. They are craving it a hundred percent of the time, and even if they don’t act like it, they’re craving it and so use this as an opportunity. There is so much opportunity here for you. You have just got to put on the right glasses to be able to start seeing it. 

So find what they’re good at, what they do very quickly, and be observant. Look at it, collect the data on it, and involve them in that way. 

Number Four: Scale The Cleaning Based On Their Age

This is just kind of savvy motherhood, some great quick tips for getting your home clean. Whenever I’m in the bathroom and we’re cleaning, I always offer to set the stage. I give her a rag and a squirt bottle, and I put her in the bathtub. I say, oh my gosh, you’re doing such a great job cleaning. This is a great quick tip for getting your home clean with your kids.

And at about three minutes she’s done cleaning. You did a great job. Thank you so much for cleaning. I dry her off and then I let her go play. And when she comes back in the room and she says, mom, you want to play dolls with me? I say you know what? Playing dolls sounds really fun, but right now mom’s cleaning, do you want to stay in here and help me clean because you did such a good job? Or do you want to go play dolls by yourself? 

We just continue to have this dance and this conversation. And nine times out of 10, she stays with me and she helps me clean because I’ve scaled it to something that she can do. Does it make it harder for me? Yes, it does, but now my nine-year-old can clean everything all on her own. She could literally run the show in this house on her own because I’ve been doing that with her for so long, and that just continues to grow. 

Give Independence

Can your teenage boys and girls actually take care of the lawnmower instead of just mowing the grass? Can you give them the opportunity and the chance to maintain that? Some quick tips for getting your home clean is to have your older kiddos go find on YouTube how to clean the inside parts of the lawnmower or the weedeater. 

Give them the opportunities to have some independence and autonomy. That’s what scaling looks like for your children. Constantly letting them look at the actual task ahead and figure out where they can be independent and grow into something. All of this makes them feel good about themselves, and that’s the point of it. That’s how you’re going to get them more involved with you. 

Number Five: Lower Your Expectations

Tip number five of the quick tips for getting your home clean is to lower your expectations and be willing to teach. The truth of the matter is that they’re not going to do it as well as you would do it if you did it on your own. I was raised with this mentality of if you want it done right, then you got to do it yourself. I think that is hogwash!

“The truth of the matter is that they’re not going to do it as well as you would do it if you did it on your own. I was raised with this mentality of if you want it done right, then you got to do it yourself. I think that is hogwash!”

That is the number one way to bog yourself down, to where you’ve put way too much on your plate and you literally are drowning. That’s not the way to be a good leader first and foremost. And it certainly is not a way to create an environment where other people are going to want to help you. 

A quick tip for getting your home clean with your kids is that you are truly going to have to truly lower your expectations, and that’s okay. Should you teach your children how to take pride in the work that they do? Absolutely. But they are not going to grow up to take pride in the same things that you take pride in. So you show them what it looks like to take pride in things that are meaningful to them. 

Manners

My husband and I are big sticklers for manners, formality, and principles. So we teach that to our kids, but they’re not going to be like us, and your kids are not going to be like you and they shouldn’t be. So the important part, when I say lower your expectations, I don’t mean for them to be allowed to perform at subpar levels. It means they’re not going to perform at the levels. 

Grow & Nurture

You’ve got to start looking at this human that you were gifted to grow, nurture, and lead. To look at what expectations should they have for themselves. And so we’re looking at what they’re good at, what they want to do, and then we teach them how to grow into that. 

Being able to teach them and lower your own expectations that you’ve put on them and understand through conversation and heavy observation, what kind of human they are. This is where you’re really going to start to see them come back to you and say, what do you need help with? 

They’re going to start asking, can I help you? It’s going to blow your mind. My kids want to help me because of how good they feel about themselves most of the time, but not all the time. I’m not perfect. We grow and we learn. That’s the fun part of this. 

The Beauty Of Parenting

I can’t stress this enough. This is the beauty of being a parent is taking the time to sit down and really look at this and see it isn’t about cleaning your house. It’s really not. There’s so much opportunity here that you’re completely missing because all you care about is checking a box and getting it done so that you can move on to the next thing. And this is how you learn to pour into your home, is by looking at what is the actual purpose of these walls. What is the purpose of this roof? What is the purpose of these dirty dishes? 

A Quick tip for getting your home clean is to realize how much of a blessing it is to have all of the mess because it means that you’ve had life there. It means that you’ve had money to purchase the things. It’s really truly such an honor and such a blessing to be able to steward the home that you have. And so take a step back and really look at how you can maximize everything that you’ve been given, and you can do that through all of these five steps that I’ve just given you.

That was part two of my quick tips for getting your home clean with your kids’ help. Now, if you want to get into that even deeper and really take that rag and ring every bit of goodness out of it. I would love for you to consider joining us inside of The Systemize Your Life Academy. I can’t wait to meet you over there and over inside the Free Facebook group.