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Play the Cleaning Game
Sweep Your Child off the Couch
By Laura Cone
Shust-Santone says she hopes her son will learn how important it is for males to contribute to domestic chores. "I think that will help in the future," she says. "If he doesn't get married, he will be on his own. He needs to learn these things."
Encourage your husband to put down the remote control and get involved in cleaning games. Pick one weekend a month designated as a wild and clean family fun day when everyone in the family turns their old socks into puppets for dusting and resolves to make a clean sweep.
As your children get older, they will probably begin to realize cleaning and other chores are not always going to be fun.
Elizabeth Crary of Seattle, Wash., the author of Pick up Your Socks ... and Other Skills Growing Children Need (Parenting Press, 1990), says parents can teach their children to become self-motivated about chores and jobs.
Crary is the founder of Star Parent, a parenting program, and the mother of two grown children. For her book, she collected data from 660 families for her household participation chart. She found the average age most children take out the trash with help from a parent is 5. The average age they take out the trash with a reminder is 9, while the age without reminding is 11.
