The Benefits Of Involving The Whole Family In Spring Cleaning

April is usually the time to tackle your spring cleaning. As a working mother, it is typically difficult to set aside a chunk of time to deep clean your home. Now, with the global COVID-19 pandemic keeping many of us at home, everything has changed. If you’re stuck at home, it may be the perfect time to tackle spring cleaning. On top of that, your children are home, too. Involving your children in the process has so many benefits for you and your family, especially since the house often looks like a bomb exploded in it by the end of the day.

Benefits of Involving the Family in Spring Cleaning

This year is the perfect time to think about involving the family in spring cleaning. Never before have your children been home this much with nowhere to go. Aside from this, there are countless benefits to involving them in spring cleaning. Here are a couple of big benefits:

Involving the family adds a bit of variety to the more recent activities. You’ve been trying to get them to do their online schoolwork, be active as much as possible, and get along while letting you work from home.  Add in some spring cleaning to the list of activities to ease the monotony of their day. Monotony can bring down morale and motivation for some. Instead, when children do something new and different each day, they will gain a sense of accomplishment and productivity.  Your kids will feel more useful, which will bring up their morale. 

When the family is involved in spring cleaning, they get a jump start on summer. This summer, your family will probably want to get out as much as possible–even more after this hiatus from all things in-person. Spring cleaning now will give them fewer in-home responsibilities this summer since they’ll only have to maintain an organized and clean house instead of adding some deep-cleaning activities to their list. 

Steps for getting your family involved in spring cleaning

Putting this idea into practice can be a little daunting, especially if this will be the first time you’ve involved your family in spring cleaning activities. A few simple steps will increase your success.  

Start by making a list of everything you want to have done. Involve the family in some things that need to be done. Does the sidewalk need a good power-washing? Does the storage closet need to be organized? Has a room become a catch-all for unneeded items? Has the stovetop been neglected for the entire winter plus quarantine? Get the family together, walk round your home, and put together a list of things that need to be done. Write it all down.

Assign jobs. Obviously, these jobs will need to be assigned considering the age of your children. But it’s a great time to teach new cleaning skills and encourage your kids to take ownership over these tasks. Get started with some assignment ideas by checking out this list that’s divided by age group. It may take a bit of extra time to show your kids how these tasks are done if they haven’t done them before, but consider this an investment in your children.

Schedule cleaning time. Every day, set a time your family will work on spring cleaning. Deciding that cleaning time will last one hour is a great start. If your family has more time than that, maybe you have a larger chunk of time dedicated to cleaning or multiple slots of time for everyone to check off items assigned to them. Either way, watch for the times of day when everyone is least productive in terms of school work. That’s a great time to get everyone up and moving for a brain break.

Set deadlines for every task. Deadlines will keep everyone accountable.  Set deadlines for the children’s assigned tasks and even give yourself deadlines. If everyone is held to the same standards, everyone feels like they’re part of a team.  When everyone feels like they’re part of a team, they will feel more appreciated and motivated.

Reset (or set up) a maintenance routine. Now that everything’s getting a good deep clean, it’d be awesome to keep it that way. Set up a cleaning routine that will get your family involved in maintaining the cleanliness of the house.  Include simple things like dusting and more complex things like mopping or organizing the pantry. These schedules can be set up daily, weekly, monthly, and even quarterly.

Family time is about more than cleaning

As a word of caution, don’t change the focus during this time stuck at home completely towards spring cleaning. Don’t forget to reach out to others as much as you can during this time. Make good use of your family support system. Have fun exercising together. As a family, reach out to friends, family, and the community. Make phone calls, have video chats, eat dinner together virtually with others. And bond with one another. Play games, go for walks, and learn something new together. Mixing in fun will make this time both productive and enjoyable.