Teaching Kids how to do Laundry
This shop has been compensated by Collective Bias, Inc. and its advertiser. All opinions are mine alone. #TotalBleachControl #CollectiveBias
I’m one of those Moms that bends over backward to help my kids to succeed. I’m pretty sure that’s because I never had that when I was growing up…so I may go a little overboard in the helping department.
My kids work and play hard so I do a huge amount of “home” work for them because I don’t want to overload them with too much responsibility. I want them to focus on the more important aspects of their lives during the school year…education.
However…it’s summer time and it’s the perfect time for those kids to learn some new skills without any outside pressure or distractions. One life skill that I’m pretty passionate about is teaching kids how to do laundry. I have a secret reason…I hate laundry. Ok, I won’t even start on that.
Sometimes it’s easier for me to do a chore than teach my kids to do it. Laundry is one of those chores that sort of makes me cringe when I think of my kids doing it. Only because we don’t have money for ruined clothing ie…you know, those pretty pink stains on the white blouses.
It’s time though don’t you think?! I mean they are 14 and almost 17 years old! (I just taught my son last year when he went off to college. Naughty me!)
I can’t even tell you how relieved and excited I am about these NEW products by Clorox. Clorox® Bleach Packs™ and Clorox® Bleach Crystals™. It’s the same great bleach BUT it is in solid form and only activates with water! Genius, I love it! So now no more accidentally getting drips on clothing and leaving a white spot.
Now I can confidently teach my kids to do laundry AND not worry about them ruining clothing with the bleach! YAY!
So this is how I taught my daughters to do laundry. They pretty much knew how to sort the super dark or bright clothing from the light or white clothing. BUT they needed to learn just what could be bleached and what couldn’t.
I like to give my girls individual attention so I started with my youngest daughter. I sent her off to her room to get her white clothes only.
She mixed a couple of colors in there…but that’s ok because then we could do the next thing…
Look at the labels. Just because something is white doesn’t mean you can use chlorine bleach on it. So I taught her what some of the laundry symbols mean on the clothing AND made up a printable chart and put it on the wall so she and her sister could refer to it when needed. Feel free to print too for your own personal use!
Select the temperature and the load size next…We usually run a Hot wash and Cold rinse cycle for bleachable whites because it’s usually a fairly small load.
As the water fills add your laundry detergent and then drop in your Clorox® Bleach Packs™ .
Then of course add your clothes…
Now I’m not going to walk you through step by step how I taught my other teen to do the laundry…Duh! However she used the Clorox® Bleach Crystals™. I definitely want to show you that because it’s another rockstar from Clorox®!
Anna cheerfully brought down her laundry to the laundry room next. Cheerful is a must for doing chores at our house. That doesn’t always happen but oh, things are so much more pleasant for us all when the chores are done cheerfully…don’t you think?!
We chose our settings, looked at labels and then we added the new Clorox® Bleach Crystals™ and our detergent. This was so super easy to use too, as it was also in a solid form and we didn’t have to worry a bit about getting the clothes we wearing bleached white.
These are water activated the same as the Clorox® Bleach Packs™. Then we put our clothes in and boom, that’s it!
I think I’m pretty much in love with these new Clorox® products because they’ve made my life so much easier! Now my kids can do their own laundry, I don’t have to worry about bleach stains on clothing. WAHOO…like I said…I’m in love!
Follow Clorox® on Facebook and Twitter and see what others are saying and using these new products for.
Don’t forget to print out the laundry symbol sheet below!
What tips do YOU have for teaching kids how to do laundry?
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I am now at the stage of teaching/asking my kids to put their cloths in the washing machine. They sometimes forget about that easiest thing. So hard but slowly I’ll get them there. Thanks for sharing this post. I’m pinning it 🙂
Great tips! My kids are young, so we just do sorting. I am rather nervous just thinking of them doing laundry. I have had some bad mishaps myself and know how costly mistakes can be. [client]
I kid you not…when I went to college one of the girls on our floor was in the laundry room hitting the washing maching and telling it to suds. She truly did NOT know that you had to add detergent. Wow! We were so amazedm, we couldn’t laugh. We helped her out. She cried with frustration at feeling so stupid. She never knew.
Nice products. I’ve always liked to do laundry. I taught my son too. They need to know how to do these things. So important.