Welcome to Mother's Happy Home Cleaning School! Every summer, as soon as school lets out, we start our cleaning school. We all meet first thing in the morning (OK, it's actually 10 am, but that's pretty early for some of us!). We have family prayers, and then we have a writing assignment. Then, we clean! We usually do a "Home Blessing Hour" together (if you know FlyLady, you know what I'm talking about). We clean the house top to bottom. I work with the kids, so they know what I expect. I teach them tasks like washi
ng toilets, doing laundry, sweeping the floor, and shining the sink. We have fun incentives like the "secret" chore, treasure hunts, and games. At the end of two weeks, I present them with certificates and a big reward. The kids love it, especially the teenagers (OK, maybe not the teenagers). And me? I get a clean house! Ahhh, Heaven!
10 hours ago
6 comments:
Um...how do you get them to do this without wining things like, "it's summmmmeeeerrr. We shouldn't have to work all day in the suummmmeerrr. It's our break!" And stuff like that. Or, my personal favorite, " you are the meanest mom EVER!" Any suggestions?
Well, they actually like it, because we get everything done in the morning, and then I let them have free reign afterwards. I used to be telling them, "Not till your work is done" all day long, and they never got to do anything. Now, when they ask to do something, I say yes. Plus, I come up with a lot of different ways to make the work fun, and they get a lot of candy. I still get a lot of eye-rolling (teenagers!), but it works. And by the way, I was told just tonight that I'M the meanest mom ever! It looks like you've got some competition!
I'm lovin it! I wonder if I could force my older ones to do it??
We have weekly jobs right now and it can be hit or miss!
Great idea! Maybe you could loan them out to me for a few days? I think that I will actually try that sometime. Right after early morning swim lessons are over!
I swear it works, even with the older ones. First, because you're doing it with them, and second, because it gets done so fast (especially by the 3rd or 4th day), they have all day to play! We had weekly jobs, too, and it was not getting done, or at least not without a lot of nagging. We'll probably keep up the daily home blessing even when school's back in.
This is amazing Shelli!! Do you do consulting? Any instructional videos?
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