Get The Children To Do The Housework

So today I had a child (age 7) who every 5 minutes didn't know what to do, so I made lots of suggestions, along the lines of if you can't think of anything to do out of your toys, books, art and craft etc. there is loads of things that need doing, cleaning and tidying in the house. 

Surprising me completely this was met with an ok what needs doing, and then it must have seemed like so much fun as second child appeared and they were actually arguing over the hoovering. 

So I went from having a child at a loose end and a house that was in need of attention and  I actually ended up entertaining the children, and cleaning and tidying. They did need me to be specific, and we focused a fair amount on their rooms that needed sorting too. So they were taking responsibility for their own rooms.

It made me realise that they can probably help out more than they do already. Actually it also gave them a sense of responsibility and life skills for the future, and being independent. Doing some of the jobs together it also gave them a chance to communicate with each other and work as a team to achieve something.

So my suggestion for a children's activity is get them doing the housework !! What specifically will depend on their age, but we covered tidying, hoovering, sorting dirty washing for the machine and putting away clean clothes, emptying rubbish bins and recycling, and stripping beds. 

We also put some loud music on and danced around while we did the housework, which I think helped too, it became a fun activity.