Why You’ve Gotta Teach Kids To Clean While They’re Young

If you want your teens to help out… you’ve got to get busy teaching kids to clean when they’re young. Here’s how.

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A very recent study was brought to my attention that deals with teenagers, cleaning, and attitudes towards cleaning of the mothers who raised them.

It might come as a complete and total accidentally-drop-your-drink shock that this study shows many teenagers… are lazy… and they don’t like to clean… and they don’t clean very well.

Now before you start googling how you too can get paid to produce such history-altering results, here’s where it gets interesting.

Whew, that’s a lot of work for mom.

Of the mothers polled 28% even went so far as to say that people not cleaning up after themselves is the quality they dislike most both socially and professionally.

➡️ So basically, cleaning is important.

Teaching kids to clean while they’re young is important for many reasons:

• It’s stressful to live in a messy dirty house (and children are the ones who make most of the mess)
• if we don’t teach them they’ll never learn
• a little responsibility goes a long way

When my daughter was two, I already let her “help” me sweep, wipe the table, and pick up her toys. Anything she could safely do, I let her help me with.

Here are some general rules of thumb for teaching kids to clean we may want to keep in mind.

Start teaching kids while they still want to copy you

Emma, a teenager expert, says the best way to have your teenagers cleaning efficiently is to start them when they are young, 2 or 3 even, because at this age they love being near you doing what you’re doing.

After independent play time I always model, and later get their help, putting back the toys. Once, when my 2-year-old saw her little 10-month-old brother crawling away from a big Tupperware explosion on the kitchen floor.

My heart exploded with maternal pride.

Start ’em young simply means including them when you’re doing the cleaning.

Some things you won’t do with young ones near, things involving harsh chemicals, for example. But they can help you wipe things, sweep, dust, and even use the dust buster.

Give your kids choice in the matter (no perfectionism)

If you are going to do a few tasks, then you can give them a choice as to which they’d prefer to do.

Create an atmosphere and have a little fun because building a positive association with cleaning will help you in the long run.

Put on some music, maybe an apron, and be willing to splash a little and go slow. Consider it a bit of togetherness instead of a big thing to be crossed off.

It’ll put less pressure and bring less dread into the youngster’s hearts.

My former boss had something she tells very detail-oriented people who tend towards perfectionism. “80% is almost always good enough.” If we shot for 100% in every single thing we’d never get our clothes on for finding a new wrinkle.

If your children put the effort in, then let it be.

Children do want to do things well and they will try hard to please you.

Consider if their heart attitude has been one of effort then let their effort stand and don’t feel the need to go behind them and redo it.

If you do they will notice and eventually wonder what is the point of helping at all. If their result is poor because of a bad attitude, that is a different thing that you can use some coaching to work through that.

Consider consequences and rewards.

Once your children are school-age and can read and understand the concepts of charts, a good way to get the cleaning on a schedule that you may not have to directly supervise is to work up a cleaning rotation.

If for one month, your daughter is in charge of sweeping the kitchen after dinner, there needs to be a direct result if she does not carry it out.

Even better, arrange the chores or cleaning in front of something pleasant. Have your child earn screen time, for example, by doing chores. Luckily, this cuts down on resistance and arguing.

This is my South African method.

You won’t regret it!

Explain the importance of sharing responsibility

At the end of the day, teaching kids to clean may be harder than doing it ourselves.

It does take willpower to involve our children in the cleaning. But the point of parenting is to prepare our children to succeed in the future. Not to make it easier on them in the short term.

Because everyone benefits from a clean house, everyone should take part in the maintenance thereof. Cleaning is a great way to train responsibility and hygiene. And also to help instill into your children the idea that the world doesn’t revolve around them.

There will be plenty of ways to spoil your children with love and attention. But spoiling them by not requiring anything of them will not have a positive effect.

So, even if you have someone who comes and helps with the deep cleaning, there is always tidying, sorting, organizing, and the basic everyday maintenance like dishes, taking out the trash, clearing the table, and sweeping.

Here’s an epic list of household chores.

Start ’em while they’re young!

If you start ’em while they’re young then household tasks will be second nature. Even if they are not overly thrilled with cleaning as teenagers (or ever) it will be such a normal thing you won’t have to beg, cajole and threaten.

And let’s face it, we don’t always love our responsibilities.

But whether or not we enjoy them doesn’t determine whether or not they need to be done.