Getting Your Family to Help Out More

On episode 229 of The Pulling Curls Podcast, Hilary discusses practical ways to encourage your family to help out more around the house. She shares personal experiences and tips, such as setting clear expectations, making chores fun, and the benefits of being super busy. Join Hilary as she untangles the process of getting your family involved in household tasks.

Find it here on Apple or Spotify Podcasts

Big thanks to our sponsor Practical Parenting — it’s got just a few tips to up your parenting game a bit.

Links for you:

My episode on the Saturday clean episode (#134): https://www.pullingcurls.com/podcast-134-family-clean/

Come join me in Family Routines: https://www.pullingcurls.com/family-routines/

Timestamps:

00:00 Set clear bathroom cleaning expectations for kids.
04:08 Encourage kids to be self-sufficient and helpful.

Keypoints:

1. In this episode, Hilary Erickson talks about getting your family to help out more with household chores.
2. Hilary emphasizes the importance of being present and working alongside kids to show them the best results.
3. Setting clear expectations for the tasks that need to be done is crucial to avoid minimum effort from kids.
4. Making chores fun by incorporating music and rotating rooms can motivate the family to help out more.
5. Being super busy can also lead to kids being more self-sufficient and helping out more with household responsibilities.
6. Hilary shares personal experiences where her oldest child had to pitch in more because she was busy building a business and working as a nurse.
7. She addresses the advantage of kids learning to be self-sufficient when parents are not physically present.
8. Hilary encourages listeners to join her conversation on Instagram to share their experiences in getting their family to help out more.
9. She invites listeners to join her in family routines and practical parenting to learn more about managing household responsibilities.
10. Hilary gives a glimpse of the upcoming episodes, discussing confrontation and busting induction myths for pregnant friends.

Producer: Drew Erickson

Transcript

[00:00:00.370] – Hilary Erickson

Hey, guys. Welcome back to the Pulling Curls Podcast. Today on Episode 229, we are talking about getting your family to help out more. So let’s untangle it.

[00:00:11.060] – Hilary Erickson

Hi, I’m Hilary, a serial overcomplicator. I’m also a nurse, mom to Three, and the Curly Head behind Pulling Curls and the Pregnancy Nurse. This podcast aims to help us stop overcomplicating things and remember how much easier it is to keep things simple. Let’s smooth out those snarls with Pregnancy and Parenting Untangled, The Pulling Curls Podcast.

[00:00:39.430] – Hilary Erickson

Big thanks to today’s sponsor, Practical Parenting. If you guys are looking to just up your parenting game by a notch, come join me in Practical Parenting, where we help give you some ideas to make your parenting game just a little bit better. Oh, and did I mention it’s free? Find it in the show notes.

[00:00:55.110] – Hilary Erickson

Okay, let me just give this giant caveat for you here. I made this episode called Help Out More, which means you are in there with them. I just have to say that after so many years of parenting, I have not found that my kids are ever going to be great about doing things without me there.

[00:01:14.950] – Hilary Erickson

So having them there, pitching in with them has really shown the best results rather than me saying, okay, it’s time for you to clean the bathrooms because I’ve already cleaned mine, and then they go into it. It’s never worked for me. I don’t know. Maybe I’m parenting wrong. Tell me in the comments…

[00:01:30.100] – Hilary Erickson

And now I clean my bathroom just at the same time they clean theirs. When they see me doing the work somehow, and maybe that’s teenagers, they’re just better about doing it. Now, when you have little kids, you are going to have to help them. You’re teaching them how to do the things. But even with teenagers, I’ve still found that saying, Okay, it’s time to clean, just still doesn’t get very good results, unfortunately.

[00:01:50.330] – Hilary Erickson

Okay, second thing is to set your expectations clear. Tell them exactly what you want done, that it needs to be done until XYZ, because a lot of times I’ll say, Okay, it’s time to clean the bathrooms, and my kids will come back, Okay, I cleaned them, but I need to be clear in that I want you to wipe around the floor of the toilet, not just swipe the toilet with a rag and be done.

[00:02:11.580] – Hilary Erickson

So you have to make expectations clear. Kids tend to want to do the minimum. So if you set expectations and say that’s how it needs to be done every time, you really end up ahead of the game, which again is more work for you. But it’s pre-loading work that hopefully you just have to do once, and then they understand that that’s the expectation, and they should be doing it that way every time, especially with older kids.

[00:02:33.150] – Hilary Erickson

If you notice kids sliding, make sure you’re setting those expectations so that they’re helping getting the work done and you’re not having to come in afterwards and then redo it behind them, which is the worst.

[00:02:44.970] – Hilary Erickson

Okay, third one is to make it fun. If you guys have listened to our Saturday Clean episode, we clean, we just play a song. Every song, we rotate rooms. So we go bathrooms, bedrooms, living room, kitchen, play room. So we just go through those rooms. There’s five different songs. It takes about 20 minutes, depending on how long the songs are. I have an upbeat playlist that we go through, and it just makes it fun. We’re all jamming out to the tunes while we’re doing it, so I can’t tell you how important music is.

[00:03:13.640] – Hilary Erickson

Also, I like the idea of just switching rooms every time. They know it’s not going to take forever. Every room, we’re just focused on doing that room and then switching. If you guys want to check out that Saturday Clean, it’s a good one. It really helps my family to help me out more. I’ll put the link in the show notes.

[00:03:29.660] – Hilary Erickson

Okay, finally, here’s my last tip, be super busy. My oldest had to pitch in because I was not here very much. When he was an early teenager, we were building this business. I was still working as a nurse. My husband was working. He just had to pitch in more. He picked up my daughter at the sitters that was a few houses away, brought her home. He had to get her going. Sometimes he had to get dinner going.

[00:03:53.880] – Hilary Erickson

And if you look at kids who ended up being really self-sufficient, it’s because they’ve been required to be self-sufficient. And sometimes just not being here has helped them to do that. So I know a lot of parents are like, oh, I don’t want to be too busy. I want to be there to support my kids.

[00:04:08.410] – Hilary Erickson

But I do think that there is a big advantage to kids who literally just have to learn how to be self sufficient and help you out more because you’re just not there. You’re so busy. So I’m not saying that you should fill your schedule so that your kids have to do more, but literally not being there.

[00:04:24.940] – Hilary Erickson

Sometimes kids just have to step up to the mark. And if you set those expectations and they know what they’re going to do, sometimes that really kicks in for them.

[00:04:32.590] – Hilary Erickson

So tell me over on Instagram, what have you done to get your family to help out more? Is that a dream of yours or do you love doing all the work around your house by yourself? I’d love to start the conversation over there, so please come join me.

[00:04:45.240] – Hilary Erickson

Thanks for joining me today on this episode. And of course, Family Routines is all about getting your kids to do more. So come join me in there if you’re interested or join me in Practical Parenting. That’s free to get an idea of how things are going to go.

[00:04:58.070] – Hilary Erickson

Okay, stay tuned. Next week, I am going to talk about confrontation. I get so many friends who are like, Oh, I don’t like confrontation. And I’m like, isn’t life full of confrontation? So we’re going to talk about that. And then the week after that, for my pregnant friends, we’re going to talk about busting some induction myths based off of my own induction experience. So stay tuned.

[00:05:16.970] – Hilary Erickson

Thanks for joining us on the Pulling Curls Podcast today. If you like today’s episode, please consider reviewing, sharing, subscribing. It really helps our podcast grow. Thank you.

Keywords:

family help, parenting, setting expectations, kids chores, teamwork, fun cleaning, music, busy parents, self-sufficiency, family routines, confrontation skills, induction myths, pregnancy, nursing, podcast, practical parenting, raising kids, household chores, teaching responsibility, motivating kids, teenagers, parenting tips, family dynamics, communication, sharing responsibilities, teamwork, self-sufficient children, busy schedules, confrontation, pregnancy podcast