Mommy Moment #2: TEAMwork Really Does Make the Family Dream Work!

Very early on, during our parenting of little ones, my husband and I promoted the "Bieber Team" banner. We made every day jobs around the house a moment to wave our banner high and sing "clean-up, clean-up, everybody do your share." Inviting your children to help around the house, may take longer, and it may not turn out to be the way you would do it. You may have to put your "perfectionist ways" on the back burner for a while, but the lessons of cleaning-up, helping, caring for our things, and putting things away are definitely well worth teaching!

Making chores and simple daily jobs around the house fun and achievable is a wonderful way to help out mom and teach your children very valuable lessons. Create a play nook or area with easy storage units from Ikea or Target. Organize your toys in plastic bins and plastic drawer units to make it easy for your child to take out and clean up. Put books and blocks in a variety of tubs to place on the bottom of a shelf for easy access. Add a little table and chairs for coloring books and crayons or for reading book or games. If everything has a place, it is easy to put everything back in its place.

Teaching your child to clean up, becomes so much easier once their play area is defined and organized. From a very young age, they will be able to be autonomous in picking their toy of choice and putting it back. By the time they are about two or three, you will be able to encourage family "team spirit" by making clean-up a family activity. You will be able to inspire a positivity towards cleaning up and make helping at home something that is fun and easy to do!

Before you know it, you will be able to do this with everything that needs to be cleaned around the house. We did this with folding and putting away clothes, cleaning the kitchen, tidying up around the house, and much, much more.

One final tip to make cleaning-up more fun, than work. My husband and I would announce, "We are the Bieber team, we work together, and we play together. Let's all help out, so we can get the job done!" Announcing our intention to do a job together, and then putting out a verbal invitation to participate,

as a family, created our team spirit. This caused our children to want to actively participate in our family chores. Eventually, it also made them become responsible teenagers, who worked together to help around the house.

Remember to set the tone, establish organization, and invite your family to attack cleaning with teamwork and spirit!

#cleaning #teamwork #organization