Spring Cleaning Tips for Kids

Get the whole family involved with these spring cleaning tips for kids.

This post was provided by BusyKid. 

Spring is just around the corner, which means it’s time to start making a list of all the “Spring Cleaning” projects you want to get done before the Summer heat kicks in. The average home has hundreds of projects just waiting to be tackled, including many your kids can jump in to complete.

SEE ALSO:

• How to Delegate When You’re Tired of Doing it All
• 8 Really Unique Ways Of Teaching Kids About Money

According to a recent study by the Center for Parenting Education, children who regularly do chores are: better able to deal with frustration; delay gratification; have higher self-esteem, and are more responsible compared to children who don’t help out with chores. To me, that sounds like a total win-win!

Click here for a FREE printable list of chores by age.

Long before studies were pointing out what we already figured, chores were teaching our kids about work ethic, responsibility, accountability, time management, and sometimes, teamwork. No one will ever argue that these are all positive character traits our kids will need as adults.

SEE ALSO:

• How to Give Your Children Inner Strength
• 5 Powerful Ways to Empower Our Daughters

So as parents, why should we always try to handle all of the Spring Cleaning tasks ourselves or hire an expensive service for help, when we can assign some chores to our kids? It appears that I’m almost holding back their personal growth by not letting them handle some of the Spring Cleaning tasks.

Here are just a few tips on how to tackle your Spring Cleaning this year while getting a little help from the kids:

• Plan It Out – Once you have come up with a list of projects, sit down as a family and discuss them, set the deadlines and who is tackling what. Make sure to take age into consideration.

• Team Up – Instead of having each child take on an individual project, team the kids up to make the jobs go faster or promote teamwork. While the key is getting the job done right, you can get them matching colored shirts, or if you have two teams, let them race to see who can finish their cleaning project the fastest, while delivering the best results. Remember quality always matters!

• Make It Fun – No one said chores had to be boring, so look for ways to make it fun. Since younger children may not be able to help as much, put them in charge of quality control.

• Neighborhood Challenge – Have your children decide on a neighborhood project and have them ask a friend to come over to help. Clean a park, do something for an elderly neighbor or pick up trash from the street. The point is to work together to make where you live a bit better.

• Time = Money – When kids are able to help around the home is also the perfect time to start teaching your kids another real-life lesson – the value of money and how to manage it. Though some parents don’t want to admit it, your children need to know about money, what their time is worth and how to manage what they earn. The faster they learn this and build a solid money-management routine, the better off they will be.

• The Big Bonus – As a family, decide on one major task that everyone can work on and where the reward is something for the family. Maybe it’s shopping, or dinner out, a movie or getting ice cream. Not only can this build teamwork, it can motivate everyone to do the best job possible to achieve one goal. After all, you just saved maybe hundreds of dollars by not hiring someone to clean, mow the grass, paint a wall or wash your dogs.

SEE ALSO

• 5 Tips to Kick Start Your Spring Cleaning
• The Ultimate Cleaning Playlist
• 5 Steps to a Clean Home

Need help implementing these spring cleaning tips for kids?

BusyKid is the first and only chore app where children can earn, save, share, spend and invest real allowance wisely. BusyKid is easy to use, revolutionary and allows kids to receive a real allowance from their parents each Friday. No more points or trying to convert imaginary money.

BusyKid is committed to helping children learn the important basic financial principles they don’t get anywhere else. Designed as a platform that is easy for parents to implement, it features preloaded chores based on children’s ages and making chore payment approvals as simple as answering a text message. After receiving their allowance, children can use it immediately to save, buy gift cards or real stock, make a donation or get cash. With the BusyKid VISA rechargeable Spend Card, children can also make purchases anywhere.