In my last post, we discussed the crazy, busy days when we go back to school.  With organizing systems in place, you and your children will have calmer mornings and more time after school enjoying each other.  As I talked about last week, we need to reclaim the kitchen as the heart of the home.  One of the biggest work areas of the home is the laundry room.  If we were to relate the laundry room to a part of the body, it would be the lungs.  Our lungs bring important oxygen in and releases the CO2 from our bodies.  This in and out is similar to the laundry.  The laundry comes in and goes out constantly.  We need to develop a system that is as easy and natural as breathing, so that we don’t have to think of the laundry as such an overwhelming chore. 

A 12 year old girl in a hurry may not like what she is wearing, so she changes, leaving the clothes she decided against on the floor.  Now those clothes are mixed with a pile of dirty clothes (we will discuss this later) and she has barely anything hanging up in the closet.  You pass her room and think she needs to clean this up, but you are doing laundry that day, so you just pick it up and wash everything.  When she returns home from school her laundry is hung up and put away.  She winds up repeating this and it is now a cycle.  What is she learning?  Only that someone else will come by and do things for her.  When she goes off to college will you fly to where she is weekly to make sure her laundry is done?  I hope the answer is NO!

To make sure your children are up, dressed and ready each morning, you can have them set out their clothes the night before.  Have everything laid out, including socks, belts, underwear, hair ribbons, jewelry and shoes.  This will save a headache in the morning of the “I have nothing to wear!”.  Also, have them lay out their clothes for any after school activities.  They will know ahead of time if something needs to be washed, so you are not doing it first thing in the morning! 

Having your children participate in the upkeep of laundry will reduce the overwhelming amount than if only done by one person (typically a busy parent).  For most household chores, it is easier for parents to just do things for our children than to actually teach them how to do it.  Teaching children how to do things around the house will set them up for the transition to live on their own.  Laundry is a chore that even young children can help with.  As young as three, a child can sort clothes from whites and darks.  I recommend for all laundry areas of the home, hampers that have a divider for sorting.  Here are some examples:

Having the laundry sorted prior to laundry day will help save valuable time from sorting a large mountain of dirty clothes.  Also, you will be able to see when a load may need to be done, like when the whites are about to spill over the top.

Socks are an annoying part of laundry, not buts about it.  Another way to have your children help with the sorting is to have a mesh laundry bag, usually used for delicates, attached to your child’s hamper (with a safety pin or clothes pin).  Have your children put their socks in it.  Leave the socks in the bag in the washer and dryer.  Having all the socks in these small laundry bags will help from having to sort out whose sock is whose.  It is also recommended with front loading washers to use these bags.  I know from experience that small socks will clog your drain and cost a lot of money to get it out!  Socks in the drain line is not covered in the washers warranty.  Trust me I had to find out the hard way!  Here is an example of a small mesh laundry bag:

Another way to make sure your children are helping with the laundry is to make sure they put their laundry away themselves.  Again, small children are able to help, with some guidance.  Try having the younger child’s laundry grouped to put away.  For example, have stacks of their underwear, their socks, their shorts and their pajamas in piles that they can start to put away.  Once you know they understand where everything goes, you can ease into letting them do things themselves, like putting their basket of clean clothes into piles before they put things away. 

You can start giving your children more as they get older.  A 10 year old can fold laundry.  A 12 year old can use the washer. of hisAs you start to teach your children how to do more for themselves, the better the family will function.  You will not be responsible for the child’s soccer uniform not washed for their game, they will be!  My son definitely thinks twice before choosing what he wears, because he knows he will have to put away the clothes when they are clean.  He is conscious  choices and has saved time (and money) by not changing clothes every hour!  Even when his friends want to borrow something, he has been known to say NO because he doesn’t want more work in putting a larger amount of clean clothes away!

Stay tuned for next weeks entry for back to school.  I will be blogging on a homework and landing area for   a fresh start for Back to School.

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