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“Kids and Cleaning” by jefftk
Before having kids I thought teaching them to clean up would be
similar to the rest of parenting: once they're physically able to do
it you start practicing with them, and after a while they're
independent
and do it reliably. You invest time and effort up front, but it pays
back reasonably quickly with benefits for both you and the kid. While
we've (n=3) had good success in some areas (
street safety,
microwave usage,
walking to
school, tooth brushing, ...), tidying has not been one of these.
Early on I tried a lot of getting them to clean up, but it was very
slow, tended to dissolve into fights, and didn't seem to be getting
much better over time. Instead, over time we've mostly moved to
finding specific places where they can take on a bounded cleaning
responsibility. The goal is to give them practice without
overwhelming [...]
---
First published:
August 24th, 2025
Source:
https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/zmDx4cecdTmZNiYbq/kids-and-cleaning
---
Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.
---
Images from the article:
Apple Podcasts and Spotify do not show images in the episode description. Try Pocket Casts, or another podcast app.
View all episodes
By LessWrongBefore having kids I thought teaching them to clean up would be
similar to the rest of parenting: once they're physically able to do
it you start practicing with them, and after a while they're
independent
and do it reliably. You invest time and effort up front, but it pays
back reasonably quickly with benefits for both you and the kid. While
we've (n=3) had good success in some areas (
street safety,
microwave usage,
walking to
school, tooth brushing, ...), tidying has not been one of these.
Early on I tried a lot of getting them to clean up, but it was very
slow, tended to dissolve into fights, and didn't seem to be getting
much better over time. Instead, over time we've mostly moved to
finding specific places where they can take on a bounded cleaning
responsibility. The goal is to give them practice without
overwhelming [...]
---
First published:
August 24th, 2025
Source:
https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/zmDx4cecdTmZNiYbq/kids-and-cleaning
---
Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.
---
Images from the article:
Apple Podcasts and Spotify do not show images in the episode description. Try Pocket Casts, or another podcast app.
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