Foster parents looking to maintain a cleaner home while caring for multiple children can benefit from a family-wide cleaning schedule. By assigning age-appropriate chores, setting reasonable and consistent expectations, using a reward system, and being encouraging can help create a structured and positive environment that benefits both the home and the children’s personal development.

Maintaining a Clean Home Filled With Foster Children Can Be Challenging

Children help to fill a home with warmth, joy, and laughter. They can also fill a house with messes, clutter, and a sense of chaos sometimes. If you are a foster parent looking after several foster children at a time or you anticipate welcoming multiple foster children into your home eventually, you may be wondering what you can do to mitigate the messiness that comes with caring for a child or children.

Today, let’s look at the number one thing you can establish to help you and your family keep your home clean as you provide much-needed care for the children you have welcomed.

Create a Family-Wide Cleaning Schedule

Create a cleaning schedule with age-appropriate chores for your foster children and biological children. Doing so is an excellent way to not only keep your house clean but also help teach your children about responsibility and self-discipline. 

Studies show that children who are assigned chores gain a number of benefits, including:

• Developing higher self-esteem as they accomplish a chore and complete a job well done
• Learning about time management 
• Sharpening organizational skills
• Developing an understanding of responsibility
• Developing some self-discipline
• Learning about the balance between work and play
• Learning the fundamentals needed to one day be independent

It may be difficult at first to establish the schedule and get everyone on board with it, especially if any of your foster children are not accustomed to completing chores. When you need some tips for establishing a schedule, keep the following in mind:

Set expectations that are clear and reasonable. 

Don’t assign a task that is too complex for a younger child to complete, and don’t assign tasks with instructions that are confusing or not straightforward. Make sure each child knows exactly what they need to do. 

There are plenty of tasks you can give to your foster children. And if you have younger children in the house, you can break the chores down into simpler, more age-appropriate tasks with clear instructions. For instance, instead of asking a younger child to “clean the bathroom,” their assignment can be “to collect all the towels from the bathrooms and put them in the laundry room.”

Assign chores that tackle daily, weekly, and monthly needs. 

Maybe one of your children can be tasked with taking the trash out every night after dinner while another is tasked with setting the dinner table. And both are tasked with cleaning their bedroom(s) once a week. 

Having all children in the house responsible for at least one daily, weekly, and monthly chore adds variety to the routine as they continue learning about responsibility, self-discipline, and self-achievement. Plus, it teaches them that there are things households need done every day, week, or month to function properly. 

Be consistent in your expectations. 

The more consistent you are in your assignments and expectations, the easier it becomes for your children to take direction and get the job done. It’s confusing to think you want something done one way and then learn later that you now want it done a different way. It can also be confusing if you back down from your expectations too easily. 

Be consistent and persistent in your expectations. And if a child in your home is defiant and not on board with following a schedule, don’t back down. Instead, stick to your expectations while appealing to their self-interests. For instance, you could say, “Completing today’s chores means ## more minutes of TV. Not completing them means no TV at all,” or whatever your child enjoys doing in their free time. This could encourage them to play along and complete the chores so that they can enjoy their time later. 

Establish a reward system. 

This plays into the point above, and offering an incentive isn’t a bad idea. Everyone likes an incentive, even grown-ups. Children are no different. Rewarding your foster children with more screen time, a small allowance, a trip down the toy aisle once in a while, or anything else that rewards them for a job well done can help encourage them to continue completing their tasks without issues. 

Be encouraging. 

Everyone likes to hear when they’ve done a good job on a task. Even when it’s not completed 100% perfectly, words of encouragement and support go a lot farther than criticism and push children to keep improving and working toward more encouragement. On the other hand, words of discouragement or criticism can cause a child to shut down and not want to continue working on the task(s) at hand. 

Remember, it can take a thousand “way to go” statements to erase one discouraging statement, so be generous with your encouragement and watch your chores get completed with less fuss or difficulty. 

Are you interested in turning your home into a foster home for children in Georgia? Talk to Generational Child Care about becoming a foster parent today! 

The team at Generational Child Care would love to help you begin your journey in foster parenting and turn your home into a foster home. We become your partner in foster parenting and provide you with the tools and resources you need to register as a foster parent and begin making a positive impact in the lives of foster children in Georgia. 

Learn more by calling 478-477-1289 or emailing us at info@generationalchildcare.com.  

Related Articles:

• Help Your Child Embrace the New Year With These Fun Ideas
• GCC Celebrates 10 Years of Serving Foster Families!
• How to Navigate the Holidays in Your Foster Home
• 3 Signs You’re Ready to Start Fostering