Doing laundry may be one of the most frustrating chores to do at home, but the frustration of doing doesn’t actually come from the steps in cleaning clothes, but the time it takes to get everything done. Most people would often spend more than an hour doing laundry, although some that don’t have a washing machine or a dryer at home would take at least two to three hours to finish.
However, there are some people that would often do laundry in pairs, which makes the process much faster. The laundry partner is usually another adult, but if there are no adults at home other than you, you can actually get your children to help you with laundry. Of course, getting kids to help you in such a frustrating and time-consuming task can be hard, but we are here to provide you with several tips on how to get them to help you with laundry. So, without further ado, we should now take a look at those tips.
Start Your Kids Young
The most convenient and arguably the easiest way for you to get your children to help with laundry is to start them young, which means that you would need to train them how to clean their clothes at an early age so that they won’t view it as a tedious task once they get older.
You can start teaching them the most basic laundry tasks like folding clothes, and then once they get used to folding, you can teach them to separated dark clothes from light clothes before washing. To familiarize them with basic laundry items, you can take them to the local grocery store and teach them the differences between detergents, fabric softeners, and other products.
Do the Tasks with Them
Experience is usually the best teacher, so what better way to teach them to do laundry than by actually doing basic laundry tasks. To get them to understand these tasks, you must first demonstrate how to do it, and then you also need to do it with them so that they will have a reference on what they are supposed to do.
You should make them a part of the process so that they will feel like they are doing something gratifying and won’t feel like they are just wasting your time teaching them. Make the children feel like they are actually doing something right by congratulating them for folding or separating clothes, and by giving them a reward after doing laundry.
Keep Everything Organized
Memorization and muscle memory is an important factor in teaching children to do laundry, as memorizing and also repeatedly doing tasks would help them get the hang of how to get laundry done faster. In order for them to learn faster, everything inside the room must be organized, so laundry items should be kept in one cabinet, dirty clothes should be kept in one basket, and folded clothes should be placed in one specific location.
After a few laundry days, children will be able to memorize where certain items are, thus allowing the children to focus more on the task than actually finding the item they are looking for. If the children are still having a difficult time memorizing areas of the laundry room, you can place sticky notes on those important areas that indicate what the items are and what they should do with it.
Don’t Think that Everything Will Be Perfect
Of course, children won’t be able to do laundry tasks better than adults, so you would need to accept that everything that they do to help you with laundry won’t be the best. If they fold clothes the wrong way, you shouldn’t scold them but teach them that there is a better way to fold the clothes.
Make sure that you check every task that they do in the laundry room, so check if they separated clothes neatly or if the settings they placed in the washing machine are correct. If they are just starting to learn the basic steps of doing laundry, they won’t be able to master it right away, so you shouldn’t get frustrated if they are unable to any task right after the first laundry days. Continue teaching and guiding them, and they will eventually get used to doing basic laundry tasks.
Make it Fun
Making laundry fun will surely encourage your children to help, especially if they are rewarded afterward. You can make the chore fun by hosting mini-competitions as to who can fold clothes better or faster, who can separate dark and light clothes much neater, or who can wash the most clothes. If they are going to wash the clothes of their dolls or toys, you can ask the children to “give them a bath.” Making every process of doing laundry fun is important so that the child wouldn’t lose focus or get bored.
