The summer holidays are upon us, but having the children at home for 6 weeks doesn’t mean you have to sacrifice having a tidy home. We’ve been chatting with Aby Moore, founder of award winning family lifestyle blog, You Baby, Me Mummy, to get her quick tips on how to transform cleaning from a chore into a fun game for the kids.
We’re also giving away a powerful 18V BISSELL MultiReach Vacuum to help you keep your home spic-and-span this summer. Just enter at the bottom of the page to be in for a chance of winning!
Kids are messy, FACT! As soon as you have finished tidying up one mess, you turn round and they’ve made another one. Do you dream of magic powers that mean you can tidy up with the click of your fingers? I think we might be waiting some time for that, but what we can do is get the kids onboard with the tidying and cleaning. Regardless of the fact that it will be helping you out, it’s actually good for them to learn these valuable life skills.
Your kids might be a little reluctant to begin with, so here are my top tips on getting your kids involved in cleaning.
1. Make a cleaning kit – Kid’s really enjoy copying adults, so make up a replica cleaning kit (without the chemicals!) and they’ll love following you around copying you cleaning.
2. Make it a challenge or a game – Kids love a challenge and will do anything if they think it’s a game, especially a game they can win! So examples could be, ‘pick up everything that’s yellow’ or ‘can you pick up 10 toys in 1 minute’. This will get them whizzing around the house, without the need for Mary Poppins’ magic.
3. Put on music – Music makes everything more fun. Devise a cleaning playlist with some high energy music and you can even throw in a few dance moves as you work.
4. Pretend play – Why not pretend to be Cinderella cleaning up before the ugly sisters arrive home!
5. Use a reward chart – Kids will do anything for stickers and giving them a list of tasks to accomplish and a pen to tick everything off will get them interested and involved.
6. Keep it short and fun – Make the cleaning time short, sweet and focused on fun to prevent boredom creeping in.
7. Make it into a cleaning relay – If you have more than one kid (or one and include yourself!) set up a cleaning relay. Kids love games!
8. Use your imagination – You’re not just piling up Lego to clear the floor, you’re making a mountain for a space man to climb. Kids will get on board with this way of thinking much more.
9. Use a motivator! You might say bribe? I say a motivator… For example, ‘let’s do 10 minutes of cleaning then we can go on the trampoline’.
10. Get them the right tools for the job – Purchase a kid-sized broom and dustpan/brush, or let them try out some of your simple cleaning tools and they won’t want to stop cleaning.
We recently tested out the BISSELL MultiReach vacuum. It’s perfect for quick summer holiday clean ups and the fact that it’s cordless means we can easily whizz from room to room for a quick blitz before we get outside and enjoy the summer sunshine. It’s so lightweight that even my three-year-old daughter can happily have a go.
One of its best features is the removable hand-held vacuum which can easily be pulled off the unit and used to get in those awkward nooks and crannies. The powerful suction is great for sucking up sofa crumbs and my daughter loves using it to help out.
If you want to WIN a BISSELL MultiReach Cordless Vacuum of your own, just enter below!