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How to Keep Your House Clean with Kids

How to Keep Your House Clean with KidsBoth house cleaning and children can be overwhelming.

Many households struggle with home cleaning, especially with kids around. Parents encounter numerous challenges that keep them from having tidy homes. They feel as if they have no time or energy to clean and feel paralyzed when they do have a spare moment.

Fortunately, there are numerous tips to keep your home clean, especially with kids around. For one, it is essential to be motivated to keep your home clean. Oftentimes, it is easy to place cleaning as a lesser priority than work or making dinner.

However, there are numerous benefits of a clean home, such as reducing the spread of germs. Read the following sections to learn how to keep your house clean and make tidying an easier task.  This involves creating cleaning routines and incorporating the kids in the process.

About the Benefits of a Clean Home

Although house cleaning is difficult when there are multiple family members residing in one space, it is important to maintain cleanliness. That is because there are a variety of benefits of a clean home. One important benefit is the reduction of allergens.

The presence of allergens can worsen asthma and allergies. These can be exceptionally dangerous for young children with immune systems that are not yet fully developed. Thus, implementing a cleaning routine to keep things like carpets, upholstery, bedding and naturally damp places free of dust, dander and mold can protect the whole family from respiratory issues.

Additionally, maintaining a clean home can help reduce the spread of germs, diminishing the risks associated with diseases. Illnesses are not fun for anyone to deal with, especially parents or guardians with children.

However, keeping a house tidy and its surfaces clean, especially those that are frequently touched or that involve food, can greatly reduce the risk of family members developing diseases, such as the cold, flu or food poisoning.

Furthermore, a clean and organized space can help you feel less stressed, according to research. When you implement home cleaning habits, you will find that you are calmer as clean space give your eyes a place to rest.

Moreover, disorganized or dirty spaces can make important documents hard to find, increase the chances of injuries and invite rodents and bugs into your home.

How to Implement Home Organization

In many cases, lack of home organization creates chaotic environments that are difficult to clean. Without organization, or designated areas for valuables, objects are placed wherever there is space.

It is important to first declutter a home before organizing it. This involves discarding, donating or selling items that no longer serve a purpose or have meaning. Some of these items include:

  • Knickknacks.
  • Old documents.
  • Unread books.
  • Pens that no longer work.
  • Toys that are not being played with.
  • Expired products.

If you do not want to get rid of old items, then you can learn to repurpose items to serve a better purpose for your space. In the process of keeping a house tidy, the next step is to sort and store remaining belongings. For instance, storing all cleaning products in one place. Moreover, a toy organizer like a basket or box can house numerous of your children’s toys.

How to Create a Cleaning Routine and Rules

Developing a regular cleaning routine and reasonable rules can create necessary structure and consistency. In order for these rules to stick, they must work for the whole family. Fortunately, there is a house cleaning routine for every family.

One rule that many families with children follow is to keep toys out of the main living areas. Instead, children can play with their toys inside their own rooms or their parent’s rooms. This way, the toys are contained in one area rather than being strewn around the home.

If this is not possible, parents can designated a certain area or areas for toy storage. They can give rewards for kids cleaning up toys and putting them back into the storage after they finished playing. This is just one way parents can make a small space seem roomier.

A daily cleaning routine is a better option for some families. For instance, busy parents can conduct a daily sweep of the whole apartment. Many families find that the best time to do this is in the evening either before dinner or bedtime.

A sweep involves walking through the whole apartment and picking up clothing, toys or papers and putting them where they belong. This house cleaning process is meant to take 10 to 15 minutes at most. Doing this at a specific time every day will ingrain the habit and it will become easier to do over time.

For other families, it may be more convenient to introduce a weekly cleaning routine in which there are different cleaning tasks assigned on different days. For instance, surfaces can be cleaned and dusted on Mondays and bathrooms can be cleaned on Tuesdays.

How to Teach Kids Cleaning Habits

Teaching kids cleaning habits can have a great effect on the cleanliness of a home and how well it is maintained. Children can be a great asset in helping parents keep a home clean rather than contributing to the mess.

Parents can teach their children cleaning habits and why to do it. Not only will this make certain tasks easier on parents, it will ingrain good habits into their children. Getting kids to clean like parents should not be expected, especially when chores involve the use of chemicals and cleaners.

However, there are many other types of cleaning duties that children can participate in. For instance, teaching kids to clean up their toys after they are done playing with them can be very helpful.

In addition, children can also assist with folding certain laundry items and be taught to put their dirty clothes into a hamper. Moreover, older children and teenagers can:

  • Vacuum.
  • Wash and put away dishes.
  • Dust.
  • Clean bathrooms.
  • Mop.

Still, house cleaning is not an option for some younger children such as infants. In these cases, parents can do several things so that they can still clean with their small children around. One option is to invest in a good baby wrap or carrier.

This way, parents can still vacuum or mop the floor and keep a house clean while still caring for their child. Conversely, parents can set their child on a rocker or bouncer and clean for a certain amount of time before the child wants to switch activities or desires to be held.