Book Review: Cleaning House: A Mom's Twelve-Month Experiement to Rid Her Home of Youth Entitlement by Kay Wills Wyma

Book Description:

Is Your Home Out of Order?  

Do your kids expect clean folded clothes to magically appear in their drawers? Do they roll their eyes when you suggest they clean the bathroom? By racing in to make their lives easy, have you unintentionally reinforced your children’s belief that the world revolves around them?  

Dismayed at the attitude of entitlement that had crept into her home, Kay Wyma got some attitude of her own. Cleaning House is her account of a year-long campaign to introduce her five kids to basic life skills and the ways meaningful work can increase earned self-confidence and concern for others.  

With irresistible humor and refreshing insights, Kay candidly details the ups and downs of equipping her kids for such tasks as making beds, refinishing a deck chair, and working together. The changes that take place in her household will inspire you to launch your own campaign to dislodge your kids from the center of their universe.
 

My thoughts:
The minute I laid eyes on Cleaning House: A Mom's Twelve-Month Experiment to Rid Her Home of Youth Entitlement by Kay Wills Wyma I knew that I had to read it. It took a couple of months before one of my libraries got a copy, but when they did I put it on hold immediately.

I find this subject interesting since I feel my kids have a long way to go before they are ready for the real world in basic life skills. I can't blame it on my kids though, but more on myself.

In Cleaning House: A Mom's Twelve-Month Experiment to Rid Her Home of Youth Entitlement Kay Wills Wilma shares her experience in getting her kids to work around the house. She took them through the tasks of:

• picking up clutter and making beds
• shopping, preparing dinner, and washing dishes
• yard work and maintenance
• finding gainful employment
• cleaning bathrooms
• laundry
• home repair
• party planning and hospitality
• working together
• running errands
• service opportunities
• manners

This is a story of the good, bad, and ugly of getting her kids to work. She shares what did and didn't work, reasons why she picked certain projects, dealing with bad attitudes, along with discovering that sometimes she was more of the problem than the kids.

While reading I was encouraged with what my kids do do around the house and but there are still quite a few areas that they are lacking in and I need to focus on with them. Overall, this is a heartfelt and encouraging story that I think all moms will find something to glean from this book.