Ten steps to get your kids doing laundry

Nik MacMillan

If someone asked you to name one of the biggest household chores you hate doing, what would it be? For a lot of people the answer is laundry. It’s a pain in the neck and it never seems to end. If you have kids, you’re constantly turning socks right-side out and extracting underwear from jeans just so you can sort it all. Then, after washing, drying, and carefully folding it all, you hand your teenage son his neatly stacked clean clothes just to see him:

a. Throw it all together in an overcrowded drawer,
b. Toss them on the bed where he lays on them to play video games, knocking half of them onto the floor, or
c. Relocate the whole stack to a desk or chair claiming he’s setting out his clothes for the next few days.

The whole thing is an exercise in frustration. We’ve been working to resolve this through desperate attempts to get the kids to help with the laundry. It’s sort of working, so I thought I’d share my suggestions here. I came up with 10 Steps to work your way to laundry freedom.

Step 1: Get them to help gather laundry
My youngest is willing to gather up the laundry as long as he can throw it all over the place. Remember, it’s dirty laundry and you’re about to wash it anyway. In our case, all of our bedrooms are upstairs and the laundry is on the first floor. He gets the laundry from each bedroom and throws it in a big pile in the hallway near the top of the stairs. Then, he shoves the whole stack down the stairs and sort of slides down with it like he’s on some amusement park ride. Finally, he does his best bulldozer impression to make a big pile in the living room to be sorted.

Step 2: Have them put away their own laundry
For a long time now, we rarely put our kids’ clothes away. Yes, you may need to hang some things on hangers for them but for the most part they should be able to take a stack of neatly folded clothes and place them in the appropriate dresser drawer.

Step 3: Ask them to move laundry from the washer to the dryer
This is an easy thing for them to do. Move the wet laundry to the dryer, toss in a dryer sheet, and tell them what setting to use. The only thing you have to be careful for is when you have something that you want hung up to dry or need to check because it might be stained. Towels are always a great place to start.

Step 4: Fold towels and put them away
First, the great thing about towels is you don’t care how long they sit in the dryer. I’m kind of picky about how they get folded but I just kept going over it with the kids. I won’t lie. There were several times that I refolded all the towels after they put them away but with more practice they’re starting to meet my standard.

Step 5: Teach them to fold their own clothes
Some of us are particular about how our laundry gets folded. I find myself demonstrating over and over how I want my clothes folded, but a lot of kids just don’t care how their stuff is folded. Work alongside them folding your clothes and letting them fold theirs. Kids will naturally watch you and follow suit. You can correct them if you want, but when it comes down to it, if they really don’t care how their stuff looks you’re going to have a hard time changing that. Eventually they will care.

Step 6: Teach them to use the washing machine
This can be tricky depending on your setup. We have front-loading machines sitting on those over-priced pedestals the salesman talked us into buying. If the detergent bottle is full, it’s all but impossible for the kids to lift it up and pour it in. They also have trouble controlling how much detergent goes in. With modern high-efficiency washers, you need less detergent than you would expect. Again, towels are a great place to start. Many washing machines have a setting specifically for towels so it’s easy for them to remember what setting to use.

Step 7: Teach them to sort the laundry
This is the tough part but we just keep having them help so they understand how to sort it into loads. Not everything makes it into the pile I would put it in, but even my wife and I disagree sometimes on that. Realistically, most fabrics are pretty forgiving especially if you have a newer washing machine. You just don’t want to put that new red shirt in with a load of whites or you may end up with a load of pinks. Our basic sorting is usually jeans, whites, colors, darks, and delicates. Teach them to read labels.

Step 8: Have them do the entire process by themselves
Start with towels again. Have them gather, sort, wash, dry, fold, and put them away. Then work up to the rest of the laundry.

Step 9: Make corrections
Here’s where you have them help fix the stuff they mess up. It will happen. You’ll probably have to throw out a stained shirt that you just can’t get clean after it went through the dryer. You’ll have to refold and rehang clothes that weren’t put away correctly. You may even have to mop up detergent spilled all over the floor. (Pro tip: VINEGAR) I just keep telling myself that it’s only laundry and if the towels aren’t folded exactly how I like them, it will be OK. It will be worth it in the long run when your son goes off to college and impresses the girl of his dreams with his mad laundry skills.

Step 10: Bonus - Teach them to iron
I learned in my high school Home Economics class how to do laundry and iron. I even had homework where I had to completely taken care of two loads of laundry and then iron two pairs of pants and two shirts. It served me well in college when I was in ROTC and our uniforms were expected to be starched and pressed. Who’s got money to pay for that in college? I had more important things in my budget like beer so I did it myself. These days, I take care of all the ironing in the house and haven’t passed the skill on but I hope to eventually.

This went on longer than planned so if you actually read this far then I thank you. If you are looking for some laundry tips, I found some good ones at TheSpruce.com.

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