If you’re ready to hand over the reins of certain household and property chores to your kids, you might be nervous about how this process will go. While it can be a relief to not have to take care of these things all by yourself anymore, teaching your kids the right way to do these important tasks can be a real headache. But when done correctly, this can be very rewarding both for you and for your teen. So if you’re getting to the point where this is something on your to-do list this spring and summer, here are three tips for teaching your teen how to take care of yard maintenance at home.
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Use This As A Way To Teach About Responsibility And Accountability
At this point in their life, your teen should already have a taste of responsibility and accountability in other facets of their life. But often, being in charge of yard maintenance puts these things on display for your whole neighborhood to see. So as part of teaching your teen about caring for your yard, make sure they understand that all of this is now their responsibility.
To help hold them accountable to this, encourage them to get yard maintenance tasks done before you even have to ask them. Teach them to survey your yard and other parts of your property on a regular basis so they can tell when things need to get taken care of rather than having to be told to start certain projects. This can be an invaluable skill to have for later on in life.
Make Sure They’re Strong Enough For Certain Tasks
Depending on how big and strong your teen is, there might be certain yard maintenance tasks that they simply can’t safely do yet. So to help your teen be safe, make sure they can easily handle whatever tools they’ll be needing to use for their tasks.
If you have a riding lawnmower, even your young teens will likely be able to handle using it. But for things like weed whackers or large trimmers, you may still need to be in charge of these tools until your teen gets stronger and better able to handle them.
Provide Supervision In The Beginning
Although you might want to completely hand everything over to your teen after their first time taking on yard maintenance tasks, you should try to think of this as a process more than just a transfer of responsibility.
It can take some time for your teen to get comfortable using tools that they have just been exposed to. So to best keep them safe and ensure that they are using those tools as advised, plan to provide supervision to your teen for at least the first few times they use these new tools.
If you’re wanting to have your teen start doing the yard maintenance at your home, consider using the tips mentioned above to help you get this process started.