How to have a tidier home and spend more time having fun with your children

Obviously if you have a child chances are that you would rather spend your time with your child than cleaning. Or even if you don’t have children, I’m sure you can think of a million and one other things that you would rather do with your time instead of cleaning. Unless, you are one of those people who gets a kick out of cleaning. In which case why are you reading this post? And also let’s be friends and please feel free to come and clean my house as a fun activity.

Well, first up I have to mention that the most obvious way to save time when cleaning is to not do it yourself and get a cleaner.

If that isn’t an option then I hope some of the tips in my cleaning posts will help you to have a cleaner house and spend more time with your children.

When I set out to write this post it was eight pages long. I surprised myself at how much I have to share about cleaning. Due to the long length of the original post I have decided to split it in a series of smaller posts.

In this first post I share how you can spend more time having fun with your children and have a cleaner house at the same time.

Have you seen the Disney Mary Poppins film? Well she teaches us a valuable life lesson which is “In every job that must be done there is an element of fun. You find the fun and snap the jobs a game!”

Are you thinking but cleaning isn’t fun and there is no way I will ever be able to convince my children that it is?

What if I told you that my children beg me to let them do the hoovering? The secret is all in the presentation. If you present the jobs in a fun way, they become fun.

How have I made my children love hoovering? By playing ‘try and catch me’ every time we hoover.

This game involves me running around the carpet with them ‘chasing me’ with the hoover trying to hoover me up. We take turns to be the catcher and the carpet gets a darn good hoovering. Taking turns in being the one being chased is essential as when it is your turn to be caught you can ensure that you have gone over every part of the carpet so that no bits are missed.

I must admit that not only do they love hoovering but so do I. Seeing their beaming faces and hearing their squeals of laughter feel the air is infectious. I get such a high from knowing I am making my children so happy. It’s multi-tasking but not in the traditional sense. I am not trying to do two separate unrelated tasks at once. We are doing one job but having a really fun time while doing it.

We tidy up before the children go to bed every night. This means that once on my own I don’t waste my precious me time tidying, I actually get to spend my time in a way that I choose. This also means the morning is calmer as you aren’t trying to catch up on unfinished jobs from the day before and complete the new day’s jobs.

You’ve probably guessed that we turn the bedtime cleaning into a game as well. I constantly praise them for their tidying individually. By telling child A that they are doing an amazing job at putting the toys in the box child B instantly goes and puts the toys in the box so they can receive the praise too. I also throw out phrases like “I wonder who can put all of the puzzle pieces back in the box first?” “I think I am being the best tidier at the moment!” and “Who is doing the best tidying? Hmmm let me see…”

Sometimes we put on a song to see if we can tidy before the song ends. I find Rockin’ all over the world by Status Quo gets us all moving well. Sometimes we put a countdown timer on and race against the clock. Sometimes we count while running around. All of the above adds to the fun.

By finding the fun in every job you instil a love of doing jobs in your children. Also you will be spending fun quality time with them. Win. Win.

So what are you waiting for? Go and find the fun in the jobs and enjoy watching your children’s smiles and having a tidy home.

#Cleaning #Tidying #choresforchildren #responsibilitiesforchildren #cleanhome #tidyhome #hack #tidyinghack #cleaninghack