Back to School Preparations

Whilst the phrase ‘Back to School’ can fill children with horror and parents with delight, the housecleaning experts, MOLLY MAID recommend that it’s a good idea to have a few routines and ground rules put in place before the start of the new academic school year both for children and parents. This way you can lighten the load and share the chores around the family. After all, it is good parenting practise to teach your children how to look after themselves as adults.

Routine: Start setting the alarm again and start getting up and dressed at the same time every morning that you would on a school day. Start eating breakfast, lunch, and snacks around the times your child will eat when school has started. The same applies to bedtime as this will help ease your child into the school routine and make your life easier.

Household tasks: A simple rota pinned up on the fridge indicating some simple household tasks such as clearing the table, stacking the dishwasher, laying the table, dusty and vacuuming can all form part of the family ‘back-to-school’ initiative. Many hands make light work and this definitely applies to household tasks!

Laundry: Depending on the age of your children, you may not trust them to physically turn on the washing the machine, however, you can still ask them to separate white and coloured washing and take it in turns to bring down the washing to you and when it is dried, to help you fold and put the clean laundry back into cupboards!

Cooking: This is a useful and essential skill in life and there are simple recipes for children of most ages to get stuck into. It is always a good idea to supervise children and use your own judgement on whether they are capable of handling heat, water and sharp knives. If so, ask them to make one meal a week – it can even be breakfast, but the point is that they understand that they have to allocate the time and make the effort to ensure they have all the ingredients to hand and then make the meal for the family. Be patient with this one!

Pets: If you have a family pet, create a rota where members of the family take it in turns to clean, feed and exercise the pet in question. Having a pet is a responsibility which needs to be shared amongst the family.

School Clobber: In order to save school bags and ruck-sacks being thrown on the floor as soon as children come back from school, hang some sturdy hooks for the children to hang their school bags and encourage them to take off their school shoes and place them here. This way you will save a few extra minutes in the morning as everyone will know where their clobber is!

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