Encourage Teens to Do the Dishes

Doing the dishes is not a difficult task and any teenager has the capability to do them. The problem is not so much that they're incapable of washing dishes; it's getting them to do it. It is possible to encourage your teen to do the dishes without creating World War III in your house. Here are a few ideas to get your teen to do the dishes.

Instructions

Step 1
Make a schedule. On the schedule list everyone’s chores. Your teen might not rebel so much about the dishes if he finds that his sister has to take the trash out and pick up the dog poop while he does the dishes.


Step 2
Give gentle reminders. Create several notes, flyers, artistic drawings whatever works best for you that remind your teen to do the dishes. A yellow sticky note on the back of the iPod or reminder notes placed lovingly on every single page of your teen’s loose leaf binder or neatly placed in her homework folder might do the trick.

Step 3
Hold them hostage. For those unfortunate teens that are not quite old enough to drive, use your chauffeuring capabilities as a bargaining tool for them to wash the dishes. If they don't wash the dishes, you don't drive them to where they want to go.

Step 4
Use the dirty dishes as permission not to do one of your chores. Your teen’s dirty dishes in the sink gives you permission not to cook. After all, it’s next to impossible to cook your teen’s favorite meal with a dish full of dirty dishes.

Step 5
Sing about it. For the more creative and technologically advanced parent, create a rap song about doing the dishes. Record it on your computer; download it to their iPod over and over again. If that doesn't work, burn the song to a disc and play it when you notice that it's time for the dishes to be done. In order for this to be effective, you must play the song over and over again while turning up the volume every time the song is played.

Step 6
Use the old electrical short trick. If your teen loves spending time chatting online or updating her MySpace page, secretly disconnect the wireless modem. While you’re at it, disconnect the cable connection too. You have to do this in secret. Over a period of weeks your teen will begin to notice that whenever the dishes reach a certain level in the sink the unexplained electrical short occurs. Go figure!

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