Urban Blog

Wouldn’t it be great, really great, if you could get your kids involved in the laundry process? If you handle the laundry in your house, then you already know that the laundry can be a very big and never ending job. Like cleaning itself there are always more dirty clothes. And needless to say, if you have children you have even more laundry to conquer each week.

While you can cut corners, you can’t cut every corner. At the end of the day, the laundry has to get done. Finding a way to get your kids involved in the laundry process is essential if you want to keep your laundry time from consuming all of your free time!

Let’s dive in and explore some tips for how you can get your kids to lend a hand with laundry time. Luckily, there is a lot about laundry that can seem fun and intriguing to little ones if you just use a little strategy and present it the right way.

Tip One-Older Kids Can Do Their Own Laundry

Maybe the single easiest and fastest way to reduce your laundry load is to have your kids do their own laundry. Sounds great, right? Washers and dryers may be a little more sophisticated and complicated than they were a decade or two ago, but that doesn’t mean that your kids can’t lend a hand. Even getting your older children and teens to do their own laundry once a month would give you a well-deserved break!

Now, you might be thinking that this idea sounds impractical and maybe even impossible, but with older children and teens there is no reason that they can’t handle this responsibility. And if they are planning to go off to college in a year or two or three, this is something they are going to need to know how to do for themselves anyhow. You’re teaching them valuable life skills while you get a break. It’s a major win-win.

The time you invest in teaching your kids how to do laundry will be time well-spent. Just be sure that you stay consistent with your demand that they pitch in and help with laundry duties.

Tip Two-Make it a Game

A major hurtle in tackling laundry is an efficient manner is collecting the laundry. Having kids means that more than toys are often spread across the house. Is your home full of laundry scattered all about the house? You might not be able to get your children to handle their own laundry (and of course this isn’t really even an option for younger children), but that doesn’t mean that you can’t get your kids to pitch in and keep their own laundry organized.

Each child should have his or her own laundry basket, preferably in his or her own room. In this way, laundry is kept organized and separated. If you have more than one kid, you can even gamify the process of laundry collection. Who can hang the laundry on the clothesline the fastest?  Who can collect and fold the most laundry of a certain color? Who can gather and put all their socks in their drawer the quickest? You get the idea. Kids love games, and they often love competition with their siblings.

Tip Three-Emphasize the Benefits of Helping You

Simply barking orders at children often doesn’t achieve the desired results. While it may sometimes be hard to believe sometimes, kids can use logic just as well as adults, when they want to at least. Keep this fact in mind when trying to enlist your children in the laundry process.

Point out to your kids that the time you spend doing laundry could be spent doing something else, such as playing with them, taking them somewhere they want to go, cooking something delicious, or helping them out in some other way.

Show them how the small amount of time they invest in helping you with the laundry will benefit them later in some way or another. Just a simple statement like, “Let’s see how quickly we can get this laundry done, and then we’ll all go to the kitchen to bake cookies” can be motivating enough to get them to pitch in and help.

Tip Four-Make Laundry Time, Family Fun Time

Yes, laundry isn’t usually fun. But with a little effort laundry time can actually be exciting, especially for younger children. When you approach the task with some joy and zest, they will mirror your attitude.

Children can help you sort and fold washed clothing, for example. During your laundry time together, you can do things such as play their favorite music or have a television show on in the background that they enjoy. Maybe make up a song about doing laundry that you can sing while you work.

Tip Five-Let Kids Personalize the Laundry Process

Kids, especially younger kids, like to personalize not just objects, but also routines that they do. Try letting your children personalize everything from their clothing hampers to the laundry basket and even their clothing storage areas and dressers. If you decorate their belongings, they will have even more love for using them.

Check out this post for “15 Ideas for Stressed Out Moms” including some ideas how you can decorate laundry baskets as a family DIY project.

Chores Really Do Matter

If you can get kids into the idea of helping you do laundry at a young age, then it becomes a standard part of home life. No doubt it is important for children to focus on learning, studying and growing, but it is also important for children to learn how to take care of themselves in both large and small ways.

Learning how to do laundry and participating in the process may not see like a “huge deal,” but at the end of the day consistently helping you with laundry will help your child grow and develop. Doing the laundry can be fun for children with the right approach. You, as the parent, can make that process a fun and even interesting one for children.

Increasingly, experts are pointing to the importance of giving children work around the house as a way to foster their development. Don’t be afraid to encourage your children to help you not just with the laundry, but with other household activities as well. It just takes some creativity. In the end, you’ll be glad that you did.