How to Turn Chores Into Games

Teaching kids to pitch in and help with household chores is a challenge that’s surprisingly easily overcome. If you learn to disguise mundane chores as games, they’ll get done fast and be a lot more fun. Maine-based organizing guru Bonnie Joy Dewkett, of The Joyful Organizer that creates and implements organizational systems for the home and office, shares some tips for making games out of chores. And Dewkett should know organizing: She’s the creator and host of a weekly radio show called The Joy of Organizing that draws hundreds of thousands of downloads. Read on to turn mundane, boring chores into fun games for kids-and adults alike.

1. Make it personal
Give your children personalized cleaning caddies. For boys, you can adorn them with race car or sports stickers. For girls, you can decorate their caddies with glitter stickers or ribbons on the handle. Assign each their own areas of the house to be “king” or “queen” of keeping tidy.

2. Create a scavenger hunt
Give your kids lists of items to search, find and put away in a 15-minute time frame. The child who crosses the most items off the list gets a prize, whether it’s 10 minutes more time on the computer, extended bedtimes or the pick of a favorite meal.

3. Every second counts
Give your kids piles of dried laundry. Set a timer and see who can fold all the clothes and put them away fastest-in the right places, of course! Socks in the toy box don’t count!

4. I spy with my little eye
Hide stickers or coins under books, vases and baskets. Your kids get to keep whatever they find as they dust the furniture. You could even designate a sticker that gives the finder the chance to pass their least favorite chore to a sibling!

5. What time is it?
Dewkett suggests that moms “Use a visual timer such as the Time Timer so kids understand the time, even if they can’t read the clock.” Asking your kids what time it is while they’re helping with chores will help distract them from the sometimes mundane tasks that can seem to take forever.

6. We’ve got the beat
When all you can hear is the clock ticking away at a snail’s pace while you’re plugging away at chores, Dewkett’s advice is to “Play music while doing chores and dance to make everything seem just a tad bit more fun!” Kids will love it and it can help you burn some extra calories too. You can even put on your kids’ favorite music and tell them they have 30 minutes to tidy their rooms.

Shelley Moench-Kelly is a New England-based writer and editor whose freelance clients include Google, L’Oreal Paris and TheWeek.com. You can follow her on Facebook