Focus on the Family Marriage Podcast

Guest (Male): Do you ever feel like your family spends so much time on screens that they're turning into zombies? Well, you're not the only one. And you can fight back by doing a screen fast. Get a free guide from Plugged In, the tech experts at Focus on the Family. You'll get tips on how to do a week-long screen fast for kids of all ages, plus tips for you as a parent. Get the guide at pluggedin.com/screenfast. That's pluggedin.com/screenfast.

John Fuller: Sometimes kids come home and they frankly just need a break. And you probably should give them a little space, but eventually, it might be time to tackle the house chores. I'm John Fuller with Dr. Danny Huerta, who leads our parenting team.

I don't know about you, Danny, but when we had kids in school, it was so hard to keep the house clean, partly because we homeschooled many of them, not all of them. Partly because there's just this level of activity and it'll wait, it'll wait, it'll wait. But it's hard when kids are especially small to keep the house clean.

Dr. Danny Huerta: Oh, it's tough. I mean, you think about the different personalities in the home. Some are more tidy and some are more messy. And some kids are more aware and some kids are less aware. And then you have the different personalities of parents. You have one parent usually that's more organized and the other one that's not so much because that's usually how it works.

And just the busyness. You say, "Oh, I can do that tomorrow." And enough tomorrows, and then you have a mess on your hands. I know when we had our kids in the home, it was challenging to keep the house consistently clean. And then you have to define, what does clean mean?

Some people have different definitions of what it means to have a clean house. Some would say it needs to be spotless, it needs to be absolutely clean. Some say picked up. And then some say, "Well, if you can walk around, that's clean." So as parents, you want to make sure the definition is clear. What do we mean by clean?

John Fuller: Well, let's go ahead and turn now to a conversation that Focus on the Family president Jim Daly had with Christy Clover.

Christy Clover: Well, number one is decluttering. And what's actually—I mean, there are times when I declutter without kids around and I use a black trash bag so they're not going, "But that's my trinket from whatever."

Jim Daly: "That's my Lego in the carpet." I hate those things.

Christy Clover: Oh my goodness, they're dangerous. But so to declutter, and one of—what I think is good when you are helping kids to learn to declutter is that you want them to realize: am I really playing with it? So does it have value?

But also is it totally broken and not worth saving, should I just toss it, or can I bless someone else with this? And so that's been what's really neat, is that we've been blessed with hand-me-downs through the years. And so getting to have them start thinking like, "This is a toy I don't play with. I should give this to someone else."

Jim Daly: That's good. So you help your child think that way.

Christy Clover: Absolutely. And so whether I'm dropping it off at a donation center or sometimes they'll save things for a garage sale—that doesn't always happen to be honest—and so maybe they'll think about selling things, especially if it's an item that may be worth something more, they're going to be thinking about selling that.

Jim Daly: That is great. You know, one of the things Jean did so well, and I just give her so many kudos for this, the boys started doing laundry pretty young, like 10 or 11. And they've kept it up. Jean just said, "Hey, if you want clean clothes, clean them yourself." And she really stuck to it.

And it's probably one of those great stories because they are good at doing laundry and they do their own laundry and they have been for years. You did something similar. How did you get them to do it?

Christy Clover: To do the laundry? Well, with laundry, I always encourage them—so I'm big on doing a load of laundry, like my own laundry, their own laundry, once a week because you want your loads to be small. And so the smaller the load, the easier it is to actually get it out and fold it and put it away. It's when you are trying to do these massive loads or lots of loads in one day that it gets overwhelming.

With the kids, I just trained them to do it all on cold. And I don't buy a lot of white clothes.

Jim Daly: There's a wise tip right there.

Christy Clover: I know. And the white clothes they have, they know to not wash it with everything else. They'll put it usually in our laundry basket because we do separate our clothes. But we just start young. And so I have them helping me. So when they're really little, they're the helpers that are moving it from the washer over to the dryer and then helping me bring it out and go through all the different things.

Jim Daly: So at what age do you say, "There, you've got it. It's yours. You do it."?

Christy Clover: It's really child-dependent. But usually around five, they can—I know, I'm late to the game compared to Jean. I was happy, "Hey, look at all the bleach I'm putting in, Mom!" Oh yeah, no. Five, it's supervised. And they usually need some help with the folding elements, like parts of it.

But that's one of my other tips for kids. So number one would be decluttering, but number two is having the right tools. And so with the right tools, they'll have more fun with it. So the tool for laundry that we use—we found this thing, it's called the FlipFold.

Jim Daly: FlipFold.

Christy Clover: FlipFold. And it's what stores use to put their shirts, right? And it's so fun. I mean, they literally get excited. The day I brought it home, they're like, "What else can we fold?" They were taking everything off the hangers to fold them. It was hysterical. But it's still fun. I thought it was a novelty.

Jim Daly: I had a college roommate that could have used one of those. His idea of doing laundry was after it comes out of the washer, it goes into the basket and it just air dries in a wrinkled mess. It was bad.

Guest (Male): Is this a friend of yours?

Jim Daly: It was a friend in college. Haven't seen him in years. I know that. Could have used one of those fold things.

John Fuller: Well, good stuff from Christy. And Danny, as we emphasize school year resets here, how can my family set and maintain a good approach toward decluttering and cleanliness and chores and all that, and maybe even have some fun with it?

Dr. Danny Huerta: Yeah, that's good. I love the "have some fun with it." And if you have a child that's more naturally the fun one, have them participate in helping you come up with creative ideas to make it fun. And it can include music.

John Fuller: I was just going to say, crank the music and jump in. Thank you. Yes.

Dr. Danny Huerta: We use Godcaster. Listen to our Godcaster. Or Adventures in Odyssey. Put it on as you're doing chores and cleaning up. That can be an easy way to make it fun.

Allow for this year to be a new reset truly. If you just say, "You know what, last year we didn't do it," and you just go to all the ways that you guys have failed so far, your kids are going to be just demoralized and not motivated. And they'll say, "Oh, we're going to fail anyway, so why even try?" You just go, "Hey, this is a new year. Guys, let's do this differently. We improved in these ways last year, I think we can kind of keep going from there."

And this summer, we relaxed on things. Our house is a bit of a mess right now. And as a parent, if you feel overwhelmed by that as you begin to think about doing all this over again, start with one room at a time. One room that is prioritized. If we can get this one room in order, then what will happen is you'll have momentum to have other things in order if you keep the main area in line.

And so assign tasks to each of your kids. And they may roll their eyes, they may go, "Oh no, I'm so busy." That's okay. You're not there to be their friends. You're saying we're going to conquer this together as a family. And if not that responsibility, then maybe you give them a different one.

If they're complaining about a responsibility, it's okay. Just let them know, "Hey, it's going to be for a season, and then we're going to rotate around." But this is a team effort. And it's to create a home that's operating well. And this is our home. And so as a team, we're going to conquer this. We're going to be consistent with it.

And hey, let's put in some celebrations as we're doing this differently this year. Then you ask your kids, "What would be some celebrations we could do as a family on a weekly basis as we are maintaining this part of the house?" And then we'll continue to move from there and establish a picking-up routine each day.

If you can just take five, 10 minutes for a quick pick-up, just say "Hey, quick pick-up time," everyone participates, then you can begin to see some rhythms that help you feel like at least you're on top of it. Maybe not perfect, but at least you're doing something differently than last year.

John Fuller: There you go. And to help you along the way, we've got a free download called "Avoiding the Chore Wars." Implementing some of these ideas from Danny will help you avoid the chore wars. If you need further encouragement, just go to the show notes, click the link, download that tool, and you'll find out how you and your family can kind of call a truce in the area of getting these things done without experiencing the warfare.

Also, we have Christy's great book, *M.O.M.: Master Organizer of Mayhem*, which offers encouragement and practical advice to get organized around your home and avoid all that clutter.

Dr. Danny Huerta: What a good title.

John Fuller: Yeah, it is. Master of Mayhem. So many parents feel like, "Okay, all I can do is control the chaos." So that's a great—you're right, it is a great title. We'll send the book to you when you make a donation of any amount to support this show and the ministry of Focus on the Family. Donate generously as you can, request the book, the link is in the notes.

And then Danny mentioned Godcaster. Well, we've got a new Christian music station called Focus Live. We'll link over to it in the show notes and you can download the app for Godcaster, the platform the station is on. It features Hillary Scott, Ben Fuller, and so many other great artists that you know and love. So be sure to give it a listen, especially when you're doing chores around the home.

Next time, Melissa Hannigan joins us to share about how you can be flexible during this upcoming school year. For now, on behalf of Dr. Danny Huerta and the entire team, I'm John Fuller, and thanks for listening to the Focus on the Family Parenting Podcast.