Podcast #160 – How to Keep the House Clean with A Lot of Kids

Tactics for keeping the house clean with a bunch of kids underfoot!

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Resources mentioned:

• 4 Steps to a Better Homeschool Day (free class)
• Mom’s Daily Checklist
• Cleaning with Kids Podcast Series – #46-49
• How to Put Your Homeschool on Autopilot – Podcast #50

Transcript:

This episode is all about how to keep your home clean when you have kids

A lot of kids means a lot of messes. There’s just no way around it. The more people you have in the house, the more people there are to be making messes. And obviously it’s going to be more difficult to keep your home clean.

This episode is going to be all about how to keep your home clean when you have a lot of kids, and I hope you find some wonderful nuggets of encouragement and truth in this episode.

Hello, friends. Welcome to the Raising Arrows® podcast. I’m Amy Roberts from RaisingArrows.net, and this is episode number 160, How to Keep the House Clean with A Lot of Kids.

A lot of this information is also in my book, Home Management for the Homeschool Mom. I have it in paperback form on Amazon, and then in ebook form and audiobook form on the blog at RaisingArrows.net/store. So I would encourage you to pick up that book because there’s a lot of different things that it touches on in there. Even though it’s geared toward homeschoolers, it also touches on the fact that I have a large family, and a lot of times homeschoolers do. And so a lot of those kinds of systems and routines and ways of doing things will work well for you as well. But there’s also going to be some things I touch on in this podcast that are actually not in the book. So definitely, even if you own the book, go ahead and keep listening. And I would love for you to drop me a line at amy@raisingarrows.net. if you have other ideas or even other ideas for podcasts you would like me to share in the future,

When you have a lot of people in the house, you are going to have messes

Okay, so to give you a little background about me for those of you who are new. I have ten children. My husband’s in the military. He wasn’t always in the military. We’ve gone back and forth between the military and corporate America, and then back to the military. We have moved 14 times. Most of those were actually civilian moves. And, we are currently homeschooling five children. This is the least amount of children I have had in my home school in a really long time. I am at that place in my life where children are leaving, and I’ve graduated almost as many as I have in school.

So as I said at the top of the podcast, when you have a lot of people in the house, you are obviously going to have a lot of messes. There is really no way around that.

Personally, I know that the worst of the messes were back when my kids were eight and under. I had four children, 8 and under, and they just weren’t much help, frankly. I remember my eight year old son taking a video of our house, because I made the very poor decision of letting him have the video camera to just play around with and take some video. And, he ended up taking a video of our messy house. That’s what he called the video, too. And he went around and he showed all of the messes, and for eternity, I now have this messy house video that the kids think is hilarious, but it was not hilarious to me at the time. And even looking back on it, it’s a little tough for me to see. I had never been a super neat person. I did okay, but it did not come naturally to me.

And then when I had my second child, probably when she was pretty close to a year old, I started using the FLYlady system – FLYlady. net. She has an app, but back then, there were not apps. And so I started following her system, and I actually managed to get my house really under control, more so than it had ever been. And things were very calm, and I didn’t have to push everything to the back of the table to eat supper. It was just a really peaceful, calm time in my life. But I only had two children.

After I had my third child, we moved when she was four months old to a completely different city, a completely different house, a completely different way of doing things. And about three months later, I was pregnant again. Actually, not even that much. It was only about two months later that I was pregnant with her little brother.

And frankly, once he came and I had four children, 8 and under, I totally lost the ability to use the FLYlady system. It was just not doable anymore for our family. There were too many little people, too many messes, too many things on my plate, and I had to completely change how I did things.

I have an entire podcast series on cleaning with kids that you can listen to that goes through some of the different things I did over the years, depending on the circumstances. And that might be very helpful to you, particularly if you only have little kids.

Start the night before.

So one of the ways to keep your house clean, and I really hesitate to say clean, because it really just needs to be clean-ish, because honestly, you’re not going to have it super fantastic clean until your kids get a little bit older and they can actually participate too. But one way to start the ball rolling is to start the night before.

Now, don’t stress out if this is not something you can do. It was not something I could do back in the day, but it is something I’m able to do now. But, if you can start the night before and just reset the house in sort of a tidy up, something that makes it so that in the morning when you come into the kitchen or you come into the living room, it’s not a colossal mess. All that eye clutter is going to stress you out the next morning.

I know for me, one of the worst places is the kitchen. And it’s the dishes. All it is is the dishes. If I can somehow get those dishes off the counter into the dishwasher and I don’t see them, even if they’re just on the counter clean, I can handle that. It’s the dirty dishes, because it’s a job. It’s something that the second I got up, I had a job to do.

Now, you already have jobs to do the second you get up. When you have kids, you’re nursing, you’re changing diapers, you’re feeding kids, and then you’re homeschooling, if you homeschool, and it’s over and over and over, you just constantly have all these things to do, including the housework. So to wake up and that’s the first thing you see is a job that’s just not a very good way to start your day. So if you can start the night before, have the kids tidy up.

And yes, I know if they’re all little, they’re not going to do a great job, but as they get older, you will have trained them that this is just part of our evening. Do a little bit extra yourself. If you can just put away a few things and not get overwhelmed and bogged down by trying to do it all, just put away a few things. But if you need to rest and you have a nurseling attached to you, don’t sweat it. Don’t feel like you’re a failure because you didn’t get the house clean the night before, and you wake up to a pile of dirty dishes in the morning, you are not a failure. You are a very busy mom. And I will honestly tell you, to this day, I still wake up quite often with dirty dishes beside the sink. And I actually have kids who do that job. But because there’s so many of us, the dishwasher gets run. There’s a kid who unloads it, and then there’s a kid who reloads it. If the dishwasher gets used, like right after supper with table chores, it takes a couple of hours for it to run. And in those couple of hours, there are other kids, particularly older ones, who are making snacks, making things for the next day. They’re making things to take to friends, and they are piling up dishes next to the sink. And, yes, I could tell them that any dishes they make, they have to do themselves, but I don’t follow that either. So it’s just not something I have tried to do. But because of that, because the dishwasher is still running and because then those kids go to bed and there’s nobody to unload and reload. we do often wake up with dirty dishes, and they are usually dishes that were used for snacks. And I have just had to come to a place of peace with the fact that I’m probably going to wake up to dirty dishes. However, I know it’s not a job for me. It’s a job for the kid, whoever’s table chores they belong to. And so I don’t feel so bogged down by it as I once did.

But that’s just a tidbit for you – if you can start the night before, do so. If you can’t, don’t feel guilty about it. Realize that your circumstances are just not such at this point that that is a feasible option.

Build anchors into your day.

All right, number two, build anchors into your day. I have a Four Steps to a Better Homeschool Day class where I talk about anchors. Anchors are events that happen pretty much at the same time every day or in the same order.

For instance, one of our anchors is homeschooling. We almost always start at 10:00 a.m., and we always start with Bible. So that is an anchor. It anchors our day. And things can be put around that. That can get other things done. But the anchor stays hard and fast. That’s where it belongs.

For instance, we have a 4:00 p.m. TV watching time for the kids. At 3:45, they know they’re going to do a tidy up. The anchor was the TV time. I do have to set a reminder on my phone for 3:45 to make sure they do the tidy up, because the tidy up is not the anchor, the TV time is the anchor. So it revolves around that anchor, but it’s something that in order for that anchor to take place, they have to do a tidy up.

And so that’s how anchors work. They’re a set thing, and then you build a routine around that anchor.

So this would be like chore routines. Set a routine to the same time, around the same anchor every single day, if you can. What that creates is an autopilot system so that everybody remembers. This is how this goes – in order to watch tv, we have to tidy up.

Now, remember, I said I had to set a reminder because kids are kids and moms are moms, and we don’t always remember things. So set a reminder for yourself.

This is when we’re going to tidy up.

Remind yourself to change over the laundry as soon as you put a load into the washer. Tell your phone to remind you to move it over at a certain time, even if it’s not exactly the time that you were supposed to move it over. If your washer takes an hour and 50 minutes to be done. You don’t have to necessarily set your reminder for an hour and 50 minutes. You can set it for 3 hours. And at least you are still getting the laundry done throughout the day by setting these reminders.

And so that is one way to keep the house clean with a lot of kids and keep things going is to set these reminders and then to build a system around anchors.

So, for instance, our, table chores, obviously, they are always after the meal. It never changes. You have to eat, and therefore you have to clean up. And so those are the kinds of chores I’m talking about, things to just keep the house running as smoothly as you can with a lot of kids.

Another thing that was really helpful for me back when I only had little kids was to clean what was bugging me the most. I kept a whiteboard, and I would get up in the morning and I would survey my kingdom, and I would decide what was the most awful thing that was driving me crazy. And those were the things that needed to be cleaned that day.

I would try to assign them to whatever child was somewhat capable of doing it. Like I said, I had an eight year old as my oldest, and eight year olds can be kind of finicky and kind of not good at their jobs, but we keep trying, don’t we? So I would keep this whiteboard, and I would write his name and his sister’s name on the whiteboard, and I would try to give them some chores that were age appropriate for them. And then I would also write chores out for myself. I would keep it to no more than three per person because that’s a lot. And I would just try to knock them out throughout the day and erase them off the whiteboard as I did them. So really, it’s just an idea of what bugs you. Take care of it if you can.

The other thing that I did a lot of was emergency cleaning. And this is just because you have a life to live. Sometimes it gets overwhelming and the house gets overwhelming, and the only thing you can do is emergency clean when you find out somebody’s going to be there and apologize when someone shows up unannounced and it’s just not all that perfect.

I also would consider not apologizing. I know I just said apologize when it isn’t because that’s like this second nature thing to me. I’m supposed to say, “oh, I’m sorry, the house is a mess. You missed the clean day.” But honestly, I remember years ago visiting a woman quite frequently who became a very dear friend of mine. She had five children and she homeschooled. Her house was always a wreck, but I don’t remember caring that it was a wreck because she was there to talk to me. She was there to sit with me and chat. And that’s what I needed. And I did not need her house to be clean for her to be hospitable.

I think sometimes we equate the two. We think the only way that we can be hospitable is if our house is clean. Now, certainly a really gross bathroom is going to be kind of a turn off to somebody who needs to use the bathroom. But there again, maybe you could find a way to anchor that kind of thing to a moment in time during your day.

For instance, right after you eat breakfast, you clean the bathroom. Or right before bed, you clean the bathroom. You just kind of do what FLYlady calls a swish and swipe and you call it good. No deep cleaning, just making sure that it’s presentable and not disgusting.

But honestly, most people who walk into your house, while they may be neat-nicks themselves, and I know for those of you who aren’t neat and tidy naturally, that people who are neat and tidy who come into your home completely stress you out. I get it. It can be just not necessary for you to say anything. Almost act as if it’s no big deal, and be as hospitable and loving as you can be despite your environment.

Having a clean home does not make you a good person or a good Christian or a good friend. It has nothing to do with it. It has to do with your heart. So try to let that go and still be hospitable despite what your home looks like.

Lower your expectations

The other thing that I would really encourage you to do is to lower your expectations. We used to have a friend who would say, “I was having a bad day until I lowered my expectations.” And really, that has stuck with me over the years because he was right.

Sometimes our expectations are so incredibly lofty that there is no way we’re ever going to meet our own expectations. And sometimes we think we’re matching our expectations to what other people expect. But that’s not fair either.

The Bible strictly tells us not to compare ourselves with ourselves. Again, it’s a heart condition. Quit trying to make it more than it is. You have to realize you have a lot of kids, you have a lot of hats to wear. And if you homeschool, your life looks even more different than it does for the average homemaker or for the woman who doesn’t have children still in her home. You live a different life and you have to accept that, accept your limitations and lower your expectations of what you think you are supposed to look like.

Really consider where the idea of what you think you are supposed to look like came from. Where is that coming from? Did you learn that from your mother who no longer has kids at home and keeps a neat and tidy house and hasn’t had kids in the house for 25 years? Are you getting that from an elderly lady at church who always is very prim and proper and has a very neat home and a neat garden? Are you getting that idea from a woman who is naturally neat and has as many kids as you do? But she also spends all her time cleaning. Or maybe her kids are in school, at the public school, and she spends all her time cleaning because that’s what her focus is. And that’s the thing that is really important to her because she’s a naturally tidy person. Just really consider, where did you get this expectation from and why are you trying to be someone else other than who God created you to be?

Certainly you can learn skills about how to keep your home clean. I have. I am proof positive that you can go from being very messy to very tidy. I mean, I hate to say very, but my home is nice and tidy. I like it that way. But I don’t have little tiny children anymore. And I also have helpers who are big and able to help me now. When they were all little, despite me wanting to be tidy, it was not happening. And so I really struggled through it and I learned methods to help make it better, but it was never what it is now because I live in a different set of circumstances now. So really recognize your limitations and lower your expectations on what this is supposed to look like.

Stay consistent with certain things, even when things go wrong

And then the last thing I would tell you is just to keep on keeping on. Work at staying consistent. Everything in your life will be better the more consistent you manage to make things because it takes less brain power.

Once you’ve been so consistent, you end up on autopilot. And I do have a podcast about putting your homeschool day on autopilot. If you can once get most of your day fairly consistent, when something is thrown at you that changes that consistency, you’ll be able to kind of mentally note, okay, so this is just a wrench in my plans. It’s not the end of the world. Tomorrow, I know exactly where to start over.

That was the whole point of my Mom’s Daily Checklist, is to give you things in the morning, afternoon and evening that sort of just make your day flow and you just work through them and then fit everything else in between and you know where to go back to. Once things have gotten off track and you’re able to get back on track, you just kind of look through and figure out, okay, I didn’t get that done, but now I can go take care of that because this crisis has been averted and now I can start back over.

You can get that FREE Mom’s Daily Checklist at the link in the show notes. And I’d encourage you to take that Mom’s Daily Checklist and adjust it for your personal needs. It’s just a jumping off point, a way to get you started with putting together a routine to your day that allows you to stay consistent with certain things. And then you build your anchors into that and eventually you have a nice flow to your day. Even when things go wrong, you at least know what a consistent day looks like. And you can come back to that tomorrow or next week or whenever it is that things kind of slow down a bit.

You won’t get it right every day

But when it comes to staying consistent, please realize that does not mean getting it right every single day, day in and day out. That is not what that means. You are working toward consistency. You are working toward keeping on as best as you can. It’s not going to actually ever look perfect.

I don’t even know anyone’s day who looks perfect all the time. My mom is a widow. She lives alone in a very small house, and I am pretty sure consistency is queen in her household. But she doesn’t have every single day perfect. You just have to keep going.

Despite failures, despite setbacks, despite another baby, despite trouble with a job or a home or moving or whatever it is that might be in your life. The idea is just to run the race as the Bible says. It’s not about getting it right. That is not what Jesus is asking you to do. He’s simply asking you to keep on keeping on, keep moving, keep going toward the goal. Keep your eyes focused on him.

Some days that’s going to look like doing nothing but abiding because you don’t have the energy to do anything else. And some days that’s going to be you out there killing snakes because you’ve got all the energy in the world. It’s not going to be fully consistent. Even though I said stay consistent, I really probably shouldn’t have said that. I shouldn’t have used those words. It really is keep on keeping on, keep moving forward. Keep your eyes focused on him. That is how you keep your house clean with kids. That’s how you parent, that’s how you homeschool. That’s pretty much how you do everything – is just keep going.

Friends, I hope that you feel encouraged by these words. I hope that you realize these children are a blessing. They are not something that is keeping you from having the most perfect house in the world. They are not something that is supposed to drain you. They are blessings.

And yes, they are work, and yes, they are beautiful, and yes, they take time and energy and all kinds of things, but you are blessed. And so when it comes to keeping your house clean with a lot of kids, it really is a matter of seeing yourself as blessed and then allowing your home to be an outpouring of that blessing. However it is that you can get the job done. It doesn’t have to be perfect. It just has to be a reflection of who you are in Christ. And there is a lot of grace and mercy and forgiveness in that. Have a wonderful day, my friends.