Book Review: Cleaning House

 Cleaning House
A Mom's 12 Month Experiment to Rid Her Home of Youth Entitlement
by Kay Wills Wyma

Cleaning House is one mom's story of teaching her children some important life lessons.  How to keep clutter under control, get a job, do laundry, throw a party, serve others, and more, are all topics included in the book. Kay takes one month to focus on each topic and shares how her family does with each task.  Her writing is fun and easy to read.  The topic is relevant and interesting.

I enjoyed reading Kay's stories.  I particularly like that she shares her mistakes, what didn't work, and her children's quite normal reactions, including lots of eye rolling and "but mommm!"s.  She doesn't paint a super-mom/ super-kid picture.  Reading the book definitely left me encouraged to try some similar things in my own family.  Cleaning House shares the importance of teaching our children these life lessons, and at the same time makes it feel very doable for those just starting out.

My only issue with the book is that her children are older than mine.  While I loved reading her ideas, I need her to write this book all over again with younger children in mind!  I am keeping Cleaning House on my bookshelf as a great reference for the teen years.  Kay's blog looks like a good resource as well.  Cleaning House will encourage you to train your children in valuable life skills rather than enabling self entitled attitudes.  I'm already creating my own list of topics to teach my little ones!

I received this book free of charge from WaterBrook Multnomah for review.