Although we are not all about feng shui, we do believe in decluttering and cleaning our home for personal energy renewal. Spring/summer cleaning at least once a year is a necessity to stay organized and happy 🙂
Becoming a parent changed everything. It forced me to be more organized and maintained a hoard free environment for me and my family. With the changing of the seasons, comes time for my whole family to spruce up our house and transition clothes, etc. Here are some cleaning tips that even your little ones can do.
Schedule a Time
Carve out a weekend to do this, it usually takes us a day or two to complete.
Get Your Kids Excited
Get your kids excited about spring cleaning 1 or 2 weeks before. What’s been helping us is 1 week before the scheduled date we would show them some cleaning YouTube clips and make it sound really fun. We love showing this clip to them. Trust me, this will get them excited!
Team Work
It gets overwhelming when you think you have to do it all on your own. Develope a strategy to divvy the jobs up between the teams.
Because of my tiny stature, I’m responsible for cleaning the surfaces that are eye level. I love using paper towels like Viva Vantage because they are easy to clean and discard. They also absorb cleaning liquids easily.
G is tall so by default he gets to clean the ceilings, top of the refrigerator, and the fans. To get the twins involved he picks them up and has them clean the hard to reach areas. Remember, don’t expect perfection from your kids and never ever redo their work. This will send your kids the message that their work wasn’t good enough. The key is to be proud of their work and empower them to feel like they are contributing and part of the solution.
Motivation Tools
Play some upbeat music. Our twins are into dancing to the Gangnam Style song lately. Crank up their favorite songs and then they can “wax on” and “wax off”. Before the song ends, the jobs are done.
Give Back
Have your kids help you put away their winter clothes and old toys. We have 2 boxes; donation and trash. Our twins had a hard time letting go of certain pieces of clothing and toys, but once it was explained how these pieces no longer fit them and would help other younger kids their age, they threw them in the donation box immediately.
Reward
Rewarding their hard work is so important. When the chores are done, schedule a family treat. This can be pizza for lunch or a trip to the ice cream store for desserts. The incentive is that there’s a payoff at the end of a hard days work, which is a sweet deal.
You don’t have to be a feng shui master for a perfectly decluttered home. You just need team work, a fun working environment and a couple of words of encouragement. Your home will thank you for it.
Disclosure: Thank you Kimberly-Clark for sponsoring this post. As always, all opinions are my own.
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