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Dust Bunnies
Hop into Spring Cleaning with Your Child!
By Debra Weaver
3. The same sorting and reorganizing can be adapted with toys, games, etc.
4. Make a game out of picking up toy pieces, scraps of paper, etc. Ask your child: "How many pieces of (whatever you're picking up) did you find?"
Not only are you teaching your child to be helpful, they are learning the values of fitness also. "Spring cleaning is a perfect opportunity to engage children in physical activity," says Maureen Sweeney, exercise specialist at the Texas Children's Hospital in Houston. "According to the NASPE (National Association for Sport and Physical Education) toddlers and preschoolers should engage in at least 60 minutes, and up to several hours of daily, unstructured physical activity. Scrubbing, wiping, dusting and moving around to get more steps in a day will increase the child's total caloric expenditure, as well as help Mom and Dad out."
"As the father of a preschooler, I can tell you that spring cleaning is a great opportunity to teach a child many lessons: the value of donating old items to charity, the joy of eliminating clutter and the importance of safety," says Chris Falk, media director for the American Association of Poison Control Centers. "Cleaning products rank high (No. 2 in 2003) on the American Association of Poison Control Center's list of substances most frequently involved in children under six years poison exposures." The AAPCC recommends the following:
- If the doorbell or telephone rings, take the cleaning product – or the child – with you.
- Give the child a small bowl or spray bottle of water to use for cleaning. Buckets of water pose a drowning risk to small children and cleaning products can beharmful.
