I have officially given up on all of us pitching in together on Friday mornings to clean the house. This worked last year and over the summer, but just has not been jiving with our schedule this fall. Having a dirty house does not bring me peace. The kids are busy all day with lessons, outside classes, and interests, and at the end of the day I myself and too tired to manage chore times.
Solution: Clean the house myself in the mornings when I have energy and the kids are working on assignments.
This week, I cleaned upstairs on Wednesday and downstairs on Thursday.
Pros: I was able to clean to my satisfaction (sometimes the kids do not do it as well as I would like), it got done in a short period of time, and I did not have to nag or oversee anyone
Cons: It took time and energy that I normally spend on other things, the kids are not contributing to the maintenance of the house, and the kids are not making money from doing chores
Is this a long term solution? Probably not, however it did work this week. And after six weeks of an irregular cleaning schedule, it was lovely to have it all done. We will see how long it lasts. I’m guessing when my kids start running out of spending money and want to earn chore money, we will have to come up with another system.
North Star Homeschool Resources 