With a lot of people and a smallish house (But then it would only be worse with a largish house, wouldn’t it? That’s not one of my desires.) comes a lot of mess.
With messes there must be order. Or Mama loses it.
So we came up with a workable method. If you have younger children don’t feel overwhelmed by this. We didn’t start out with this advanced of a method. They used to only have their toys and a little of the laundry to pick up. But I’ve slowly added more chores, divided the house into fairly even areas, and put them on a rotation. Here’s how that rotation breaks down. As of right now my three oldest (8,6, and 4) are completely responsible for these areas and BigMan (just turned 3) is a floater. He helps me mostly and sometimes he helps the others. ”Help” for him looks like “Hey, buddy do you want to pull these clothes out of the washer and put them in the basket for me?” Or when helping his siblings they’ll tell him what to pick up and where to put it or who to take it to. He likes helping still. He’s also required to pick up something that he’s gotten out (yet another pair of shoes, maybe?) and put them where they belong. Not all of my young 3 year olds could have done this. So, if yours doesn’t, go easy on yourself – it could be that particular child. And you always have to consider: this child has 3 other people to emulate.
They each have what we call a “living area”. They must do these areas first (you gotta put on that illusion first and foremost, right?) And then they move onto the other rooms. I’m not great about making sure the other rooms are spotless as much as I’d like, so occasionally I have to go sit with them while they get it right. And in case you’re wondering they clean our bathroom and bedroom because they leave their toys, clothes, and shoes everywhere - they don’t discriminate.
We keep this sheet posted on our fridge so that everyone can see it (the 2 older boys or I read it to my girl). It eliminates all the “but I cleaned that yesterday” or “that’s not mine” – the answer to those is “Yes, you did clean that yesterday and I’m aware that’s not yours. Next time you’ll remember to put your own things away and somebody else won’t have to pick up after you. And, besides, life is about taking care of others and not feeling put out by it.”
If we miss a day (or 4 when everyone is sick) we don’t worry about who did what last we just pick right up with the day we’re on. No arguments.
There are different times of the day that I may tell whoever happens to be standing closest to clean off the table, pick up the stuff on the rug, or some other random chore – that has nothing to do with what area they have. Just obey.
We have “All” on Sunday just because there’s not an even rotation right now. But I’m kinda liking it so far. They have to actually work together to get something done and they get to see how quickly things can get done when more than one person is working on it.
So, how do you divide chores in your home?
