Kids Who Clean the House Make Better Students

Now you CAN say chores are good for you when your children complain.

According to a new study by Dr. Alan Hirsh and the Smell & Taste Treatment and Research Foundation of 5,000 high school students, 84% of the students with an A or a B average associate their homes with a lemony, minty or clean smell.

Of the lower-performing kids in the study, 34% of them associate their homes with a distasteful smell such as urine, feces or mold.

By keeping a clean house, you may be helping your children be better school students. Dr. Hirsch acknowledges the smells themselves are not making better students; a well-kept, clean house is usually the sign of a stable home which is a better environment for academic success.

“The good news for moms – and their kids – is that the hard work they put into everyday chores like scrubbing floors and washing windows results in more than just a home that looks, feels and smells clean,” said Jennifer James, founder of The Mom Bloggers Club. “It’s not about a clean house – it is about the powerful difference parents can make in the lives of their children.”

Here are a couple more tips for parents from James:

• Celebrate their hard work and effort in their school work and their chores.
• Let your kids pick out their own books to read. Reading is such a critical habit to develop that the makers of Pine-Sol brand cleaners have teamed up with Reading is Fundamental to ensure all kids are enjoying the benefits. You can participate by “Liking” the Pine-Sol Facebook page. For every two “Likes,” the brand will donate a book to RIF up to 5,000 books.
• Eating dinner together as a family has been shown to help keep kids away from drugs and do achieve higher academically.
• Board games help kids practice spelling and math without even knowing it! Watch them and see how they interact and how they are learning.

Please find out more about Reading is Fundamental at www.rif.org and make sure you like Pine-Sol in Facebook – www.facebook.com/PineSol.