How do I get my kids to clean or help out around the house?

We do a weekly version of this. Every Saturday is already a cleaning day for us, but making it a whole-family event cemented this into the routine without complaints or resistance.

I think this works so well for two reasons:

Reason #1 is being involved in something the grown-ups are doing. The more I work at this, the more I find it to be true. Young kids want to be included in what the grown-ups are doing.

Yes, this often means that tasks take longer because of instructions and repetition, but for us, it’s paid off in bonding and in less context-switching when the kids would otherwise repeatedly demand attention for their activity and questions while we’re trying to complete our task.

Reason #2 is that modeling behaviors is the best way to encourage them in kids. They seem to sense the incongruity of, “do as I say, not as I do.”