Getting the family to help out around the house has been an ongoing problem - here are some solutions I have come up with which have helped us a lot.

First each member of the family (even our 6 year old) was asked to pick a room in the

The Room Boss has several responsibilities

1) Make 4 rules for the room (eg put toys away at night)

2) Assign one age appropriate job for each family member in that room (eg DD12 dust pictures)

3) Do one very small job in the room each morning (eg straighten the sofa cushions)

Then once a week - the family spends half an hour doing the assigned jobs together- so each person has a small job to do in each room.

This method has been working well for us for about 9 months now.  Everyone is involved in cleaning and tidying so they are more likely to keep looking nice. Also everyone gets to enjoy a sense of pride in our home.

Also by making each child responsible for a room of their choice they feel important and enjoy being 'in charge'.

We have now (over a period of about 3 months) established a little morning routine as well - gradually adding in an extra thing every so often - they make their bed and bring their clothes to the lounge room (they choose their own), hot water bottle to the basket in the hall. After dressing pj's go to the wshing machine or under the pillow. They then do a tiny "Room Boss job" as assigned to that day (for instance Monday is shake rugs in the bathroom).

We also have an extra 'reward system'. The kids can choose extra jobs from a list to earn coloured dot stickers. A certain number of dots enables them to choose a 'reward cookie' from the jar. Reward cookies are also colour coded. So a big clean up job might earn a yellow dot and three yellow dots means a yellow cookie- which might have 'picnic lunch at the park' , or 'movie' - the kids choose what they would like on the cookies and I have control of the cost involved in the cookie chosen. (in case I cant afford the movies that week, lol)

An added bonus with all this is that i no longer feel resentful as 'the only one who cleans up around here'

;-)