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Set Them Up For Success
Teaching your kids to do a job well done the first time is just as important as having them help at all. After all, it’s no help to have somebody wash the dishes if you have to wash them all over again because they aren’t really clean! Take the time to do chores with them the first few times and teach them how to do their chores correctly, so they can understand the satisfaction of a job well done.
If a five year old can operate a smartphone, they can do a load of laundry. It takes a little training, but as they say,
“Tell me and I forget, teach me and I remember.” If your expectations are perfectly washed and folded laundry or you have special instructions for certain items - this might not work.
Ours is a simplified system that works for us but could be adapted based on your standards. We don’t They have to understand that the use hangers at all, only cubbies and expectations are for things to be bins and shelves. It makes it easier done to the best of their ability, not just for the chore to be checked off for us to put things away quickly, but obviously ranch life clothes are the list. This is just as much for their own sense of self-satisfaction not going on an ironing board first! in giving their best effort and being The girls have the choice to put their basket of laundry away in their proud of it. shelves or in a big wooden basket in their room where clean clothes Create a System sit until they are put away. I don’t expect the girls to put away each The most common question I get asked about life on the ranch is how others clothes every time… So, they just help move a basket along I manage laundry! With so much quickly and then put theirs away at dirt and a ‘free range’ lifestyle, it some point that day. Before they go does seem like it might be a to bed the clean laundry HAS to be daunting task, but like everything empty and put away. else, it just gets done. Laundry used to be more of a chore before the girls started pitching in - it took creating a system to make it work smoothly.
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