Working together as a family is always a good idea, whether it’s indoors or outdoors. Not only does it get the family together, but the tasks get done faster when everyone’s chipping in. However, getting reluctant children to help isn’t always easy. With this in mind, here’s how you can get the whole family involved in your outdoor cleaning tasks.
Five Tips for Getting Children to Do Yard Work
1. Start them young. Young children are eager to please, so it’s not too hard to get them outdoors picking up sticks in the yard. Make it a game and they are more inclined to help. Just make sure it’s age appropriate. Don’t have your 3-year-old mowing the lawn and playing with hatchets.
2. Take frequent breaks. Little kids especially have a short attention span, so what they might start out doing quickly becomes boring for them. Set a time and work for 15 minutes, then do something fun for 15 minutes. Throw a ball, ride a bike, have relay races – any fun kid activity. Use that to your advantage too by saying, “Do this for me for fifteen minutes, then I’ll give you fifteen minutes.” You can even make the fifteen minutes of clean-up a beat the clock kind of game. Have them see who can rake up the biggest pile of leaves before the timer goes off.
3. Explain the benefits. Older children like to know how things work. For example, weeding the garden is important because the weeds kill the plants. Also, if children help pick out what you plant in the garden, then they will be more likely to water the plants and weed them. Let it be theirs and they will want to keep it looking good, especially if you explain what needs to be done to achieve a beautiful, thriving garden.
4. Reap what you sow. There are many benefits to a nice-looking yard. You just have to get the kids excited about those benefits. Of course eating a tomato right off the vine that you grew is an immediate gratification that lasts for that short moment, but for a more lasting reminder of how it felt, document the yard’s progress. Take a picture of the yard before you begin clean-up. Then take a picture as progress gets under way and finally when the work is complete. When it’s time to do it again and the kids begin to whine, remind them how great it felt when the work was complete and show them what they accomplished.
5. Use positive reinforcement. This is key. As they are working hard, praising their hard work even if it’s not perfect will make them feel proud of what they are doing. You might even find them taking initiative and starting work without you if they think they will get a lot of praise for their hard work. They might take more notice of how the yard is looking and take a lot more pride in doing the work as long as they know it’s appreciated.
Once you get the whole family out into the outdoors doing what needs to be done in the yard, you’ll never want to do it any other way. It will go much faster with everyone pitching in and it can be a lot of fun with a lot of memories. There’s really nothing quite like the memories from childhood of riding in the wheelbarrow or jumping in the pile of leaves you just raked up. You’ll have your kids begging to help with the outdoor clean-up in no time.
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