Dishwashing Schedule

We don’t have a dishwasher.  We use to, but our dishwasher finally started getting dishes dirtier instead of cleaner and there was no fixing it.  I think I have written about that before, but needless to say, with 5 people in the house for 3 meals a day, plus snacks, we have a lot of dishes. 

I might write sometime about how moms need to make sure that they train their children to do chores and share in the work of the home, but for now, know that I am firm believer that children should be trained to share the work of the home and then be disciplined to do it. 

Training them is not an easy task.  I have heard every form of whine since I put them on the chore of dishwashing.  I started with my oldest daughter.  She is now 13, but she started washing dishes full time when she was about 11 (which is when the dishwasher started to go caput.  My other daughter who is 8 has been the main dryer and has been a washer in training.  I decided that it was time to promote her to junior washer and bring our 6 year old boy into the mix.  He is now a dryer, albeit slow.

The girls have been on me for a while to make him help.  I just really didn’t want to lose anymore dishes.  We are down to 5 large plates!  But, I agree, he is old enough to start pulling his weight in the dish area so now it is time to get on the rotation.  When it was just two girls, they pretty much did the same task at least once a day (usually).  Now with a 3^rd person, we can give each of them a break from time to time.

The other issue we have had is the girls constantly fighting over whose turn it is and what exactly should they do while they wait for the other person. There was a need to create a schedule with some rules.

So here is the new schedule.

	Sunday	Monday	Tuesday	Wednesday	Thursday	Friday	Saturday
Wash	D	K	D	D	K	K	D
Dry	J	J	K	J	J	D	K
Off	K	D	J	K	D	J	J

 

 

 

 

 

D and K both have 5 days, and J has 4.  They will both accept that J is the youngest and can’t wash, so it isn’t completely unfair to have him only do 4 days.  If I were to give the girls unequal days I would be in big trouble!

This is printed and hanging in the kitchens so that there are no fights.  If for some reason dishes get piled up because someone didn’t do their job, the first round of dishes that day will use the schedule for the day before and the second round of dishes will be from the current day. 

There are also rules about what to do when you are waiting for the other person to catch up drying or washing.  The washer is to also wipe down counters and the table, plus scrap and rinse dishes.  The dryer is to bring the dishes in from other locations, put away any food, and sweep the floor. 

As a side note, the person who has the day off from dishes usually is the person I choose to do what we call “deliveries”.  This will be another post, but briefly, we collect items that need to be delivered to another room, then I assign one or more kids to the task of making those deliveries. 

Overall, this has been a God send.  I don’t hear constant complaining now about how it is unfair that so-in-so hasn’t had to wash the dishes, or that so-in-so didn’t finish their job.  We just go to the schedule which is posted on the inside of the cabinet that holds our glasses and see who is up.  I love it!