The Cleaning Game : Getting Kids to Help Out

This post was originally published on East Idaho Collective on January 7, 2019. EIM closed on February 15, 2023. I have moved my posts to this blog in order to preserve the collection of my writing. East Idaho Collective was for women to connect with each other. These posts are less about travel and more about what it was like for me to be a mom in Idaho in 2018-2023.

What if I told you there was a way to motivate your family to have fun while working together to clean the whole house in less than 90 minutes?

You’d probably think I was joking.

What if I told you that my husband and I have been using this method with our four kids for almost two years and they all still love it?

You’d probably think I’m some sort of OCD neat freak mom with children who are suspiciously compliant.

That’s not true. I’m a regular busy mom with kids that like to say no (a lot).

My husband and I have always tried to teach our children to help out around the house, but as with most families, this was met with frustration. We tried lots of chore charts that were abandoned within days. We tried rewards. We begged, and we yelled.

About two years ago I had an idea to turn cleaning with the kids into a game. The idea was an instant success and believe it or not the kids have been known to ask in excitement, “Are we going to play The Cleaning Game?”

It really is a game. The basic rules are these.

• Divide the kids into teams with a parent/older child on each team.
• Assign each team a list of jobs/chores they need to do.
• Race to see which team can finish their jobs first.

I wrote down about 20 or so jobs that need to be done regularly in our home. These include vacuuming the living room, sweeping the kitchen floor, vacuuming each of the kids’ rooms, cleaning the bathrooms, emptying the garbage/recycling, wiping hand prints off walls, etc. At first, I just wrote the jobs on strips of paper. After the game turned out to be successful I wrote each job on an index card. I have a laminator so I went ahead and laminated each card. (BTW I highly recommend every mom have a laminator. Laminating things is an easy way to feel like you put effort into something.)

On Saturdays, I grab the cards and pull out the jobs that need the most attention. Very rarely do we play the game with all 20 jobs. Usually, we play with between 8 to 12 cards. For example, we have a card for “sweep the kitchen floor” and another card for “mop the kitchen floor”. Each time we play I decide whether the floor is going to be swept or mopped.

Then we divide into teams. I have the kids’ names on index cards too, so sometimes my husband and I draw names to pick our teams. Usually, we try to keep things even with a twin and a younger child on each team. Other times we do boys vs girls. Every once in a while the twins want to be their own team with Dad helping out from the sidelines. Once our house was so messy we played a “beat the clock version” where we worked together to clean the house in 90 minutes.

Each team picks their cards. I try to keep the jobs somewhat even so I’ll usually organize the cards ahead of time and hand them over to the teams. That way each team will only have one bathroom to clean, or the girls clean their own room rather than their brother’s.

We’ll usually announce some sort of simple prize for the winning team like cookies or ice cream. Then we get to work.

You have to be strategic with this game. We only have one vacuum and one set of bathroom cleaning supplies so we have to straighten up a room while the other team is vacuuming, and then grab the vacuum when they move on to another job. Leaving the vacuum in an inconvenient location for the other team is my kids’ favorite game within a game.

My kids love the competition, but they don’t handle defeat well. So my husband and I rig the system a bit to make sure the game magically comes out in a tie nearly every time. If I see my husband’s team falling behind I’ll make sure my team does a really thorough job vacuuming the living room. Or if my team needs to catch up, my husband will make sure his team wipes off the dining room table in addition to vacuuming the dining room floor. Little things like that ensure both teams win every time.

When the game is over we all get our prize. Usually, it is a treat we already have at home. But we’ve been known to take the kids out for ice cream if they’ve done an excellent job. Sometimes we pay the kids, but so far that isn’t a regular occurrence.

Even after all this time, I am still so surprised how fast we clean the house. Within 90 minutes we go from a messy disaster to a house with clean rooms. One of the best parts of this game is that I don’t have to do everything. The other team does half of the work. I’ll walk up the stairs and marvel at how clean they are. Or I’ll walk into the laundry room and be surprised that the floor is swept.

My very favorite thing about the game is that my kids are actually excited to clean that house. It’s so rewarding to hear my daughter run by yelling, “I’ll get the vacuum.” Or see the twins rush into the bathroom to get that one done first.

I don’t know if The Cleaning Game will work for everyone, but it has been a hit in my family. Try it out and see if it works for you. I’d love to hear your feedback.