I read an interesting thing in a book recently. The book is 'Switch' by the Heath brothers. In it they speak of the double side of each of our motivational responses. They refer to these as the rider and the elephant. The rider is logical and the elephant is anything but. One interesting aspect they talk about is appealing to the elephant (who loves instant gratification) in regards to getting kids involved in cleaning the house. In the book they recommend using a kitchen timer, set it for 5 minutes, and clean a single room. In this you appeal to the rider (a clean house is good) and the elephant (I hate cleaning it takes too long), which leads to a clean house and a happy you. Of course the book breaks down the reasons this works and I would recommend reading this wonderful book
The reason I am sharing this is I purchased a kitchen timer last night and tried this trick this morning. I had Emma set the timer to 5 minutes. The we ran into the TV room and cleaned like mad until the timer went off. Keep in mind she hates cleaner almost as much as myself. When the timer went off Emma said, "We need more time - I'll go add some" and off she went, but this time told me she added 10 minutes to the timer (she said 5 wasn't very long). We wiped off all the tables, dusted a little, and basically straightened the room, with time to spare, So off we went of to the dreaded bathroom. We had just gotten started when the timer went off, I figured she was over it at this point, but to my surprise she look at the room and said, "we need more time again", and she placed 5 minutes on the timer. She ran back into the room picked up all the clothes while I wiped the shower and toilet - well the details of what was cleaned isn't important. The fact is she had 100% buy-in because 5 minutes isn't much time, we were not looking at tackling the 'whole house', only a single room, and once you get started in a task it is easier to justifying a little extra to finish.
I hope this helps some of you parents out there. I know I am sold on this technique, and will try to apply the principle to others actions in my own life. Such as starting this blog finally.
