How To Outsource Your Laundry For Free
Posted by Susan Epstein on December 4th, 2008 at 08:10pm
Is your family’s laundry an albatross around your neck? When and if you venture into your kids’ rooms, do you see a sea of clothing, wet moldy towels, science experiments growing on and around your beautiful set of kitchen dishes? Is it so horrifying that you would rather watch a the latest Stephen King film, than open that door?
And to top it off, do you have to beg, threaten and coerce to get your kids to hand over their dirty clothing so that YOU can wash it? Once you give it back, neatly folded, stacked and “clean”, does it join the ranks of crumpled, and moldy before your child has put it on?
Did you know that you can solve this problem by outsourcing? And it won’t cost you a penny!
Here’s how to do it.
=> Purchase two laundry baskets for each child:
one white and one other color and place inside
their rooms.
=> Write out easy to understand instructions for
your laundry machine and dryer and tape them
to the front of your machines.
=> Have a field trip with your kids (11 and older) to
the laundry room.
=> Explain to your kids that they will
be in charge of their own laundry from now on.
including their towels and sheets.
=> Give a laundry lesson and tell your kids that
as they undress, the whites go in the white basket
and everything else into the other basket.
=> Assign your kids 1 or 2 days each week that
they will ‘get to’ use the machines.
=> Inform them that if they don’t transfer their
clothing from one machine to the other or
remove their clothing from the dryer that
they risk having it dumped on the floor
by the next person in line to wash clothes.
=> Do not bail your child out. Let them forget,
let them find their clothing on the floor, wet
and smelly.
You are teaching independence, accountability, respect and consideration for others. You are also teaching that all the household chores should not fall on one person (YOU). You are giving your children a gift for life. And at the same time, you get to stop nagging and you get free time and it didn’t cost you a penny!
If you liked this tip…check out Are You Tired of Nagging? Books, Audios and DVDS…right here on the blog!
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Tags: Children, childrens behavior, Chores, kids chores, Laundry, to do lists
Under Teens/Tweens
6 Comments for How To Outsource Your Laundry For Free
1. Rachael | December 4th, 2008 at 8:19 pm
Thanks for the tips!
2. Audrey | December 5th, 2008 at 9:55 am
Wondering how many kids you have? I only have two, but that clean clothes on the floor did not go over well here LOL.
3. Susan | December 5th, 2008 at 9:58 am
I have 2 kids, now 19 and 23…flown the nest…but I tested this on them over the years and it worked..also when they visit they actually offer to do my laundry!
4. Beverly | December 5th, 2008 at 12:38 pm
This was how we did it in our house. My son was eager to “push buttons” and loved working the laundry machines from the time he was 8. My daughter not so much!
The key to having this work is that you cannot bail them out. Both of mine had to go into their dirty clothes to find the “least” dirty clothes to wear on more than one occasion but overall it worked! And now when my son comes home to “do his laundry” he will ask “Do you want me to start a load for you Mom?”
“You wear it, you wash it!” has always been the rule in our house.
5. Susan | December 5th, 2008 at 12:42 pm
I love it! Isn’t it great to raise independent, helpful, polite kids?
6. Beverly | December 5th, 2008 at 12:46 pm
There are many, many things choices that my children have made that I have not been in agreement with, but I am still so very proud because they are as you said independent. helpful and polite.
Other people like them and like to have them around so I know that they will be OK in this world.
And my son can fold a t-shirt in three seconds flat!!
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