I am absolutely in favor of kids doing their own laundry. Let's be real, at a certain age they are totally able to handle it! But, I've also received some criticism or excuses why it's too much for kids to do. In our house, starting at age 10, my kids are expected to do their own laundry. They are each assigned a day of the week to do it. I have my own "laundry day" and they have theirs. Here are five reasons why your kids need to do their own laundry, too:
1. Responsibility
I have seen an amazing amount of responsibility come from my kids because of doing their own laundry. You see, clothes just don't come clean on their own. It takes remembering each week, time to sort, and organizational skills to do laundry. It's a great skill to learn!
2. Timeliness
Time management is an important skill that we all need to learn. The younger we start to learn that, the better we will be as adults! Teaching kids to figure out how long it takes to wash/dry their clothes, fold their clothes, and put them away in their drawers and closet teaches them the skill of having to set aside some time. Are they busy? Yes - my son is especially busy. But, he throws a load of laundry in before he goes to school. After school, he finishes up drying, then he'll get them out, fold them, and put them away. It might take him half an hour for everything that day.
3. Appreciation
It teaches our kids to appreciate what they have and what their parents have done for them. It teaches them that they probably have way more clothes than they need!
4. Care
I have seen, especially in my daughter, taking much better care of their clothes since starting to do their own laundry. They might be a little more careful and prevent more spills or keep their clothes from getting so dirty! This isn't necessarily true of all kids - my son is in that category, but still cares for his own clothes by washing, drying, and folding. Are they perfectly folded and put away? Not at all, but it's the act of doing it and caring for their clothes.
5. Freedom
Mom {or Dad}, you can NOT believe the freedom of not having to do your kids' laundry! Oh my goodness! I absolutely love the fact that I am only doing my husband and my laundry now - and the occasional house laundry. It's so freeing!
I will say that this doesn't necessarily work for everyone - I get that we're all in different places of our lives. Doing a version of this, maybe assigning them a specific aspect in doing the family laundry, would be a great alternative. It has a similar effect when helping out the family this way! Have you had your kids do their own laundry? What system works best for you?
1. Responsibility
I have seen an amazing amount of responsibility come from my kids because of doing their own laundry. You see, clothes just don't come clean on their own. It takes remembering each week, time to sort, and organizational skills to do laundry. It's a great skill to learn!
2. Timeliness
Time management is an important skill that we all need to learn. The younger we start to learn that, the better we will be as adults! Teaching kids to figure out how long it takes to wash/dry their clothes, fold their clothes, and put them away in their drawers and closet teaches them the skill of having to set aside some time. Are they busy? Yes - my son is especially busy. But, he throws a load of laundry in before he goes to school. After school, he finishes up drying, then he'll get them out, fold them, and put them away. It might take him half an hour for everything that day.
3. Appreciation
It teaches our kids to appreciate what they have and what their parents have done for them. It teaches them that they probably have way more clothes than they need!
4. Care
I have seen, especially in my daughter, taking much better care of their clothes since starting to do their own laundry. They might be a little more careful and prevent more spills or keep their clothes from getting so dirty! This isn't necessarily true of all kids - my son is in that category, but still cares for his own clothes by washing, drying, and folding. Are they perfectly folded and put away? Not at all, but it's the act of doing it and caring for their clothes.
5. Freedom
Mom {or Dad}, you can NOT believe the freedom of not having to do your kids' laundry! Oh my goodness! I absolutely love the fact that I am only doing my husband and my laundry now - and the occasional house laundry. It's so freeing!
I will say that this doesn't necessarily work for everyone - I get that we're all in different places of our lives. Doing a version of this, maybe assigning them a specific aspect in doing the family laundry, would be a great alternative. It has a similar effect when helping out the family this way! Have you had your kids do their own laundry? What system works best for you?
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Hi, How often do they do laundry? Because I often ran into the problem of running out of undies while not having enough clothes to fill up a whole load! How do you tackle that problem?
ReplyDeleteThey do it once each week. If it's a small load, the washer will only put a small amount of water in.
DeleteIf you make sure they have maybe a week and a half/two weeks' worth of undies (and make sure they know that's how many they can run through in a week) I would think that would work. Maybe also have them wash their towel and one other household thing if they're having too small of loads? I used to have a washer that couldn't adapt too!
DeleteDid anyone else find it hilarious that everyone in the family is learning responsibility, time management, appreciation, and care except Dad?
ReplyDeleteWhat lesson are the children learning there exactly?
Dad is working 60+ hours a week and does a whole host of other big projects around here, so they are learning plenty from him!
DeleteI was about to say the same thing. Their dad works hard and just by reading your blog I have seen all the things he does around the house as well! Plus you also work so you shouldn't have to do everything either.
DeleteMy kids don't have a whole lot of chores during the school year because they have to go to school for 8 hours a day and they have homework on top of that. They are both in an Early College HS so they are taking college classes as well as high school classes. I stay at home so I usually do all the household chores but I think I'm going to start having them do more because you are absolutely right, they need to be responsible for their own stuff & they need to learn to help out the family as a whole. My daughter learned this this past year. She got very entitled so I stopped doing anything for her. She had to do it all herself. She learned super quick how much I actually did and how much she was taking for granted. :)