Children and chores

jayII

**professor~yaffle** wrote: »

I'm not sure, but little ones ought not to be using bleach :eek:

OP has two girls, I wonder if she'd have the same success in getting the kids to help with housework if she had 2 boisterous little boys?

I have one of each, never noticed any difference in their abilities to pick things up. If anything my boy was less argumentative as a small child than my daughter.

My male OH is also pretty good at household chores and picks up after himself.

Dreaming_always

**professor~yaffle** wrote: »

I'm not sure, but little ones ought not to be using bleach :eek:

OP has two girls, I wonder if she'd have the same success in getting the kids to help with housework if she had 2 boisterous little boys?

I think girls can be quite stubborn as well, my youngest is the stubborn one, I do wonder if I did have boys I'd treat the differently as well

meritaten

any child can be stubborn - I should know - got six grandkids and they ALL got the stubborn gene!

bestpud

suki1001 wrote: »

I won't let my children use our vacuum cleaner until they're older and a bit stronger they're 9 and 11 now. Ours is really powerful, my oh nearly killed himself when he accidentally used the vacuum over the wire - it's so strong, it stripped the wire to the bare cable.

So it might not be that they are unhouse trained. Mine are great, i ask them to tidy and they do it. My son who's 9 asks to help and the other day said "I'm going to sort my desk drawer out - it's a right mess!" He's better at tidying the living room than me!

Rather than saying they have chores, I've brought them up to be very aware that the tidying and cleaning is not solely my role, that I am their mum, not their servant and that we are all equally responsible for the mess and we sort it out as a household.

Wow! :eek:

What brand is that? Is it a British one?

I can't see how they are allowed to sell a vacuum cleaner that dangerous!

Abbafan1972

I have a Henry vacuum and even that isn't that powerful!

bestpud

Abbafan1972 wrote: »

I have a Henry vacuum and even that isn't that powerful!

I'm thinking they are probably using an upright with a rotating brush bar, but I can't see how that would pass safety tests. It would have to be a very ferocious brush to shred a cable.

jayII

We had an upright Panasonic that damaged a cable a few years ago. I wouldn't say it shredded it but it stripped a bit of the rubber off the cable, leaving a tiny patch of exposed wire.

CupOfChai

They can do it, I'd not say they shred it but if you run over the cable then it can damage the outer plastic part, and if you do it enough times or hard enough it can scrape/chip away the outer bit to reveal the the smaller cables inside. It doesn't scrape it down to bare wire, just that you can see a scrape in the outer cable or on a bad one the plastic coating on the inside wires. If you carried on running it over I suppose you would end up with bare wires and potentially a nasty shock. I don't remember if the instructions say never to run over the cable because it will damage it? I think they do though.

On the subject of boys and girls, I always did more housework than my brother, because he was cleverer than me. By which I mean I did my housework, and he always either didn't do it or did it badly so it had to be redone, so it was easier not to bother getting him to do much!

Spendless

Mine's an upright Sebo and I totally believe it's capable of damaging a wire if it ran over one. I have to be careful when vacc'ing near where the PC is as I've accidntally gone too close to cables several times and it's started sucking stuff up, I didn't mean it too. It makes a dreadful noise and stops working as soon as though so you couldn't carry on. Mine is also too heavy for our 9yo to use. This is because she's more in line with a 7yo regarding height and build, so it isn't something I'd ask her to do.

Should you enocurage children to help with chores? Certainly. Do I know any that just go ahead and do them with a smile on their face and generally tell you it's a delight to help you -nope!

Violet8

Going along with the majority here I guess- definitely get your kids started early with these things! As a child I never had to lift a finger at home and now when I go home to visit- I try and get shoo-ed away! Have to help on the sly My mum did absolutely EVERYTHING- if we were all sitting in the living room watching telly and my dad or I wanted a drink- she went and got it for us!! Result is it has taken me ten years of living away from home to cotton on to how much time and effort it takes to keep a place looking good- I was so used to all my time at home being time for myself and not for tidying and cleaning etc that it has taken me until my late twenties to starting keeping house properly! I wish I had had responsibilities for these kinds of things as a child 100%.