As nice as it can be having the kids home during school holidays, the extra mess is almost immediately obvious. Short of confining kids to their rooms to sit quietly, what can you do to keep your house clean in cleaners Romford?
Well, that’s exactly what we’ll cover below. These are our top tips for maintaining a tidy home during the school holidays.
Keeping a Clean Home During School Breaks
1. Set a Daily Routine
First things first: set up a daily cleaning routine of standard chores that deal with everyday mess and clutter. For example, this might include tidying the kitchen, putting away toys, making beds, etc.
It can also help to include other activities in the routine, such as lunch and dinner time as well as play time. This’ll normalise cleaning time and ensure everyone knows when they’re needed and what for.
2. Draw Up a Chart
Charts are your friend here, so get designing. It should include jobs and kids and tick boxes to know who has done what. While you can assign jobs to kids (more on this below), you could also have “free for all” jobs that need doing each day, such as emptying bins or tidying the living room.
Of course, you’ll need some kind of reward for this setup. It doesn’t have to be anything too extreme and will depend on what you consider to be appropriate.
3. Give Kids Age-Appropriate Jobs
Within reason, age is no barrier to helping around the house. Starting from ages 2-3, you can get kids to help with a range of jobs, including:
- 2-3: Helping to make beds, putting toys away, putting washing in the washing basket
- 4-6: Same as above but with more independence, helping with the dishwasher
- 7-10: Folding washing, helping with dusting
- 11-14: Independent cleaning, hoovering, emptying bins, etc.
By the age of 15, kids should be able to help with pretty much anything. Of course, you’ll know your kids’ abilities well enough and can give them jobs based on what you think they can handle.
4. Make Cleaning Fun
Cleaning doesn’t need to be boring, both for you and the kids. If everyone chips in during a designated cleaning time, you can put on some music, turn cleaning jobs into a race, and generally just make it a playful event.
The more you can positively reinforce cleaning as a fun activity, the easier (theoretically) it’ll be to get kids motivated. You might need to add some rewards in there too, but showing you enjoy cleaning can make a big difference.
5. Set Up Designated Play Areas
For younger kids, make sure you have clear designated play areas where they can get their toys out. This could be their bedrooms, but it could also be the living room or another space you’re happy for there to be mess.
The main benefit for you is that it contains any related mess in a specific area, which should make it easier to clean up. Plus, it’ll allow your kids to play as much as they want and to make as much mess as they want, provided they help to tidy it up after!
6. Keep on Top of Clutter
This tip isn’t confined to just the school holidays, but it helps keep everything under control. In short, aim to declutter regularly, particularly for things that have a high turnover, such as kids’ toys and clothes.
Unsurprisingly, minimising clutter makes it easier to put things away because there’s available space. If this job has slipped away from you during term time, the school holidays can be a good chance to get the kids involved in decluttering. Enlist their help to figure out what to donate, keep, or bin.
7. Plan Meals and Make Them Easy
If you’re on child monitoring duty for most of the day, plan your lunch and dinner meals well in advance so you always know what you’re having. Stick to fairly straightforward meals that can be scaled up or down depending on who’s at home. Straightforward meals also have scope for kids getting involved in the prep.
The aim here is to keep things as easy as possible for you regarding this necessary aspect of school holiday life. The other benefit is to minimise kitchen mess to hopefully reduce the amount of washing up you need to do.
8. Go Easy on Yourself
There’s really no point in getting stressed over your home being messy during the school holidays. Your goal should be to have a nice time with your kids, so keep them busy and do fun things.
Sure, cleaning is still necessary, but you shouldn’t worry about your home being messy at the expense of doing other things. Provided the important areas (i.e., the kitchen and bathroom) are hygienic, the rest is just mess.
Final Thoughts
Keeping your home clean during the school holidays mainly involves planning. Make sure you set up jobs and a chart to monitor everything, and get all those extra hands involved in tidying up the mess they’re inevitably helping to make!