SOS Pick-up

Divisions: Family Systems, Preschoolers, Teenagers, Family Activities, Cleaning, Housekeeping, Time Management, Entertaining, Working Moms, Stay-at-Home Moms, Kindergarten, Grades 1-3, Grades 4-6

I realize that the Best ceoMoms out there may never need this tip, but it is a handy tip for people like me.

Imagine that your mother-in-law (or anyone else) just called and announced she will be to your house in 10 min. You were not expecting her and the house is a wreck!

Call the kids together (we had 6, so you may have to adapt it for smaller families). Give them each a bag or laundry basket. Assign each child a category of whatever is cluttering your home (i.e. clothing, toys, media-games-books-movies, trash, dishes, etc). Give them 5 minutes to run through the house and gather up everything in their category. Then you can go through the house and let them know if they missed anything.

If your kids need an incentive, offer a penny (nickel/dime) for everything in their bag -- or charge them for each thing they missed if they already get a good sized allowance.

You can put on good music to clean up to, or come up with a fun song to sing. Make it a race to see who gets done first. Reward everyone with a Popsicle or cookie when it's all done. They just helped you avoid a real disaster!

The thing I liked best about this as a kid was that we were all working together. It only took 5 minutes, and then it was done and we could relax.

Make it a game -- It'll be fun!