The school year can make schedules a little more taxing, with homework, extracurricular activities, school functions and general household duties all vying for one’s time.
The school year is also an excellent opportunity to start teaching the kids age appropriate methods to help out.
In particular, involving them in the kitchen to assist with specific, simple chores can help the whole family in managing everyday duties and ensuring that a clean household is maintained.
Start With Simple Responsibilities
Younger children can learn to assist by bringing their own plates and cups to the kitchen after eating, wiping a counter, or helping to put napkins somewhere.
As these habits develop, more complex duties can be added and assigned based on age appropriateness.
Create A Consistent Routine
Making sure all of these contribute to one chore routinization will help to make sure that the chore will be done, despite the tight schedule of school.
The way to guarantee that the chore will get done is to make it coincide with a point in the school day where the kid will have enough time to do it, or before bedtime if it is too busy a day.
It is important that the parent keeps in mind that the kids might have a busy and tight schedule, which will mean that they will not have time to do the chore they were assigned.
Perhaps a large chore should be left out on those nights to keep them from being overwhelmed, but the routine should still be kept to as much as possible.
This way the chore will never be forgotten about, and the students will always know that they can’t outpace their duties.
Assign Age Appropriate Tasks
It is important to make sure that the chores are something that the kids can do depending on their age and ability. Younger kids can start with easier chores such as clearing away certain things from a table, throwing things away in the garbage can, and wiping a table or a certain area with a cloth or a paper towel.
Older kids can move on to higher level chores such as placing dishes in a dishwasher or even washing dishes by hand. It is also important to make sure that the parents are helping their kids with the chores as well.
This means showing them the correct way to load items into the dishwasher if they are asked to do that chore or demonstrating how to launder a particular clothing item if that is the task that they are asked to do.
A child may need a little guidance along with being assigned the chore, especially if the parent feels that a particular appliance or cleanser could be dangerous for the child to use.
Connect Cleanup With Meals
The kitchen can become a breeding ground for chaos if the mess is not cleaned up promptly. It is crucial to instill in the children the importance of putting away their used plates and other utensils.
This will avoid having to wipe multiple rooms if the dishes have been left to “cool off” somewhere until they are ready to be cleaned.
One way to do this is to make sure children clean up any mess they make immediately after meals as a normal part of the process, which will become a habit ingrained in them from early years.
Following the clean-up of individual messes, the whole family can participate in cleaning the kitchen as well. While one child clears the table, the other can be asked to help with the dishwasher.
If they are old enough and have sufficiently developed motor skills, the parents can teach them how to use the dishwasher.
The parent or child operating the dishwasher should remember that dishwasher tablets and dishwasher pods should not be treated as food, and therefore must be put away in a safe place inaccessible to children, who are very likely to mistake them for candy, unaware that the tablet’s content is not edible and that the concentrated powder is not suitable for cleaning hands or teeth.
Use Positive Reinforcement
Children have to be encouraged to do extra work at home, like helping out with extra chores.
Parents should commend them verbally when they do these things on their own so they know it’s good to do, but that it shouldn’t be done just for recognition or rewards, especially if it requires much more thought.
Parents also must understand that mistakes will be made, especially if it’s a chore the child isn’t yet developmentally capable of doing
On the child making a mistake, the parent must discipline his or her child so that they understand what can and cannot be done, according to their age or level of development.
The parent might also need to oversee them if they want them to be capable of doing the chore successfully and without mistakes.
Considering Schoolwork Involvement
The parent needs to remember that schoolwork and associated obligations should be prioritized when it comes to allocating duties.
Kids may have more time on their hands to complete chores during one week, but less time to spare on another. It is important for the parent to keep this in mind when delegating responsibilities.
A large chore can be pushed back if the child has an important exam or project due, but an evening without additional activities can involve a bigger chore for the kids to complete.
This will help balance out their schedule so they can get things done without putting undue stress on either the kids or the parents.
Balance Chores With Schoolwork
All the said tips above will help to establish and maintain new habits in the kitchen, and make the chores manageable as well as help children grow in new skills to carry out throughout their lives.
They can all be implemented easily if simplified at the beginning and built upon as the children start to become more proficient.
This will allow us to keep things simple for everyone in the family, but still have the expectations for the kids’ responsibilities at the same time, even if they are just being taught during the chaotic school year.
Conclusion
Teaching children to help out with cleaning in the kitchen during the school year can be beneficial for both the parents and the kids themselves.
Beginning early while the tasks are simple, setting strict guidelines, and giving them more responsibility as they get older will allow the children to become assets in the kitchen.
And with a little leniency on schoolwork and other activities, the chore will become just another everyday task and cease to be an annoyance.
