Have you ever walked around a display home or perhaps one of your friend’s homes and admired the perfectly arranged, tastefully decorated and incredibly neat rooms? On occasion I have to confess that I have wished for a house that is always “visitor ready.” With 6 homeschooled children however, the reality is that our house is functional, never filthy, but sometimes slightly (oh, ok downright) untidy.
It also seems that it is on the days when things are at their worst that the phone rings to let us know that someone is just around the corner and about to pop in for a visit. Thus, the emergency visitor scramble was born.
All the children have regular daily responsibilities (chores) and throughout the week we cycle through the main cleaning jobs so as a general rule, the house isn’t too far from presentable. We are working towards the long-term goal of fully equipping our children in all areas of responsibility relating to running a household so that by the age of 14 or so they will have all the skills involved in being able to manage their own homes well.
Because we have taken the time to train them to clean the house, organising our visitor scramble wasn’t too difficult. I simply call out “Emergency Visitor Scramble, come to Mummy!” and all the children report for duty. Knowing that the visitors are only a short time away gives us the incentive to work hard together, knowing that it will only be for a short time period.
The house is divided into zones and these areas are quickly parcelled out. We all dash like crazy to get the worst of the mess stowed and tidy before the knock sounds on the door. The little ones are paired with an older sibling or myself who give them specific small jobs to do (pick up the dinky cars) or are sent on deliveries (take the socks to the laundry basket etc.)
The toilet is checked and spot cleaned, the floors are picked up, bedroom doors shut and offending items tossed out of sight. Some families like to have a list for this, but I prefer to just look around and tackle whatever is the worst at the time. The older children who have enough initiative are sent to the most conspicuous areas with their little helpers while I direct the others.
Another strategy that we employ on a regular basis is a whole family house sweep. It works very similarly to the scramble, except instead of everyone heading off in different directions to try to cover the whole house, we all start in one room and work together until it is done before moving to the next area and so on throughout the house. This is a 5 or 10 minute per room tidy-up, not a deep clean and Mum and Dad are the directors. The eldest children who have enough initiative to handle it choose what they will tackle in each room, while little ones are given specific instructions to complete small bite-sized tasks. The adults do whatever else needs to be done while marshalling the troops.
We now can transform a pigsty into a reasonably tidy looking house in a very short time. All that’s left to do is throw a brush through my hair and fling that door open with a cheery smile and the visitors are none the wiser!
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Filed under: Organization & cleaning | Tagged: chore charts, chore systems, cleaning the house, home organisation, jobs for children, responsibility, teaching children to pack away, teaching children to tidy-up, toy storage, training |
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