Moms and Dads

5 Ways To Include Kids in the General Cleaning

by Kevyn Gohu
January 24, 2022

Why not try to include kids in our good old fashioned General Cleaning?

General Cleaning means sweeping up, mopping, and dusting every nook and cranny of the house. While we’re stockpiling on alcohol, Nano Spray Guns, and all sorts of disinfectants, we can’t forget the dust it brings in. The more we hoard things, the more dust starts to gather. But without any household help, you’ll have to drag the kids in to help out, and here are ways we can include kids in some General Cleaning.

1. Sweep Hockey

Instead of hockey sticks, why not brooms instead? Kids love games and they’ll do anything to play. If you’re also looking for a way to make them exercise, sweeping in the form of hockey ought to do it. All they have to do is gather the biggest dust bunny they can find before shooting it into the goal (AKA the dustpan). The kids will definitely have fun during General Cleaning like this. Though if you have priceless antiques at home, hide them somewhere first so that the kids won’t go around knocking them over.

2. Pillow Fluffing Time!

Some of us use the Rainbow vacuum cleaner to suck the dust off the pillows while we’re doing some General Cleaning. But when we do, our pillows deflate and look sad. To get our kids involved, they can fluff them up again by pulling them in and out. They get to play with the pillows while you’re sucking up the dust. It gives them that extra arm exercises especially if the pillows are a lot bigger than they usually are.

3. Squashing duty

While doing some General Cleaning, there are some linens, clothes, and other things we want to store in a plastic bag to keep the mold and mildew away. Unfortunately, the most irritating part of this process is that air gets trapped in the plastic bag, turning the bag into a balloon and making it hard to store. Some use a vacuum cleaner to seal it shut. But the non-electric way of doing it is having your kids sit down on the plastic bag to get the air out. All you have to do is store all the linens, clothes in a bag, have them sit on it, and tie it. Then, repeat the process. We’re pretty sure they’ll have fun squashing things.

4. Utensil sorting

It’s like shape sorting but the General Cleaning version for our kids. We can label our cutlery holders with “spoon”, “fork”, and “knife” and have our kids sort them out. Some of us may have a few utensils at home but for households with a lot, it’s a fun exercise for the kids to learn shape sorting too. Besides, it also gets the cleaning done when you want to wash out wood shavings and frass. Since we don’t want our kids handling the dirt yet because they like putting things in their mouths, we can have them sort out the utensils instead.

5. Keeping the pets occupied

While kids don’t directly take part in General Cleaning for this one, they can help out by bringing the pets outside to play. Sometimes, our pets like puppies and kittens can get disturbed by the vacuum cleaner noises so they’ll need someone to keep them company. Have the kids keep them company so that the General Cleaning will be less traumatizing for our pets plus our kids will also keep them from shedding around the house.

Involving the kids in General Cleaning

When our kids move out of the house, they’ll need to do some General Cleaning in their own homes too. It also helps engage their bodies physically so they don’t become Couch Potatoes at home. General cleaning teaches our kids what it’s like also to be part of a community. Encouraging them, making it fun, having some music and games while doing some General Cleaning will make it a lot more fun than just having it as a weekly grind.