With the spread of the Coronavirus turning the world upside down, and social distancing in full force across Australia, millions of kids are now forced to spend their precious school holiday time indoors, spending quality time with the family, and also creating more messes

If your kids have finally run out of board games to play or walls to paint on, why not get them to help out with the cleaning. Here are some creative ways to get your kids to help out with the cleaning, while also entertaining them along the way.

Help them dress the part

“Dress for the job you want, not the job you have”, or so the saying goes. Motivate your kids to clean by visiting the land of make believe and encourage them to dress up and role-play for the job. Need a helping hand in the kitchen? Call in “Hindy the Helping Hand”; need someone to give the house a quick mop? “Carl the Cleaner” is on the job. Simply outfit them with a simple hat, apron and child-size gloves and watch them clean away with enthusiasm, and you get to play the appreciative customer.

Incorporate music to the chore

Cleaning can be a lot of fun if you have the right music to help. Try incorporating a little fun and some games into daily household chores to keep things interesting. Fun activities such as “putting away all the toy blocks before the song is over” or “wiping the kitchen table to the beat of Frozen’s ‘Let it go” are great examples of interesting ways to incorporate music and a little fun into otherwise mundane and boring tasks.

Implement a chore chart system

If your kids are having a tough time remembering to do their chores, implement a chore chart system to remind and motivate them. Kids tend to go wild over stickers, so definitely use this to your advantage. Place a sticker on the chart every time your kid does his/her chores and discuss beforehand the number of stickers needed to earn a reward. This could 30 minutes of extra TV-time or simply some small change for them to save for a rainy day.

Summon the Toy Fairy

For young kids who are always leaving their teddies and toy blocks out in the open, try giving the story of the Toy Fairy  a go. Like the Tooth Fairy, the Toy Fairy visits the house every night in search of toys that are left out. The story goes that she is a fairy that loves toys, but never seems to have any of her own, so if she sees any toys left out at night, she is allowed to take them. This, works like a charm for young kids who are especially fond of their toys.

Some healthy competition

Kids tend to be competitive little people, so if you’ve got more than 2 kids, this method works a treat. When it comes down to chores and cleaning, simply introduce a little friendly competition between the siblings. “I’m giving you each five minutes to clean your rooms, the clock starts…NOW!” We guaranteethey will be off running to their rooms and cleaning their little hearts out in no time. The best part? No incentive is needed, often the sheer joy of competing and being named the winner is all it takes For single children, you can also time them and have them compete against their personal best (PB) times or have them compete against the parent to see who deserves the title of best cleaner of the house.

Divide and conquer

A full-blown play mess can be intimidating for both the parent and the kid.  Start by making cleaning messes a little more manageable with some strategizing. Divide messes into more manageable chunks to reduce clean up For example start by going for toys that are green and blue in colour, or associate toys with a similar theme (eg. picking up superheroes, then move on to villains), you get the idea. This will help kids to learn that, little by little, they can get a big job done – whether it’s cleaning a mess or working on a complex task.

Make it part of a family activity

Rather than sending your kids off to the lonely world of cleaning on their own, consider adding to the list of family activities to be completed together. For younger children, help them out by giving them direction on how to do it rather than just telling them what to do. Every other day get everyone together and establish a 10 minute “clean sweep” time where each family member is assigned a specific area of the home to clean and work together to have everything done. Not only will your kid enjoy a sense of community and purpose by helping out with house chores, it makes for an excellent family bonding activity.

Keeping your house clean and tidy during social isolation is possible and made easier with many helping hands. Now may also be the perfect time to tackle those jobs we put off when life is busy, like cleaning the outside windows, de-cobwebbing the eaves and even deep cleaning our carpets and upholstery. Discover how you can deep clean carpets at an affordable price by hiring the Britex Deep Cleaner. Britex Deep Cleaners are DIY carpet cleaning machines with professional cleaning results.

For more Britex cleaning tips, including how to clean the house when its full of children, or tips for a germ free home visit our blog page or check out our stain removal video series for how-to videos to remove daily household carpet stains.

Britex tip: Did you know that using a Britex Carpet Cleaner with Britex Cleaning Solutions in a high traffic office area, has proven to reduce the bacterial load by up to 99.95%. We know that bacteria can act as a host to a range of viruses and nasties, so the less of it in our carpet, the better.

All Britex products are available at the Britex hire stand in Bunnings Warehouse, Woolworths, selected Coles, IGA, Mitre 10 and Home Hardware Stores.

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