In the battle of Boy versus Dust Mite, Boy won! But the biggest winner was Mom.

Liz contacted Unjumbled for helpful tips without realizing we could do much more for her. What was her challenge? Liz is a busy mom who homeschools the three oldest of her six children. She had taught the two older children to help clean the house, but 6-year-old Seth wasn’t picking up on his job–dusting. She had shown him what to do, but he was reluctant to own the job, so it wasn’t getting done often or well.

How Unjumbled Helped Seth And Liz

Liz was delighted to hear that rather than just providing tips, we could help Seth be a better duster–virtually. We set up a Zoom meeting with Seth and Liz. Seth was our primary audience, but we included Liz because we always want to keep parents in the loop. Since he is a 6-year-old boy, our meeting was relatively short. We explained the importance of dusting (he LOVED the screen share of a dust mite taking up his whole screen) and what supplies to use. He was happy to learn it’s possible to dust quickly (and well!) to get back to playing Legos as soon as possible. We demonstrated dusting and shared a few dusting games for good measure. Then we watched Seth practice what we had just taught. We gave him a few tips on his technique and reminded him that he was now the expert to do this weekly job.

We scheduled a check-in meeting with Liz after Seth had a chance to practice for several weeks. He was doing fine, so we didn’t need further follow-ups to tweak the process.

What did Unjumbled do that Liz couldn’t have done for herself? Children often listen to instructions from a 3rd party better than they do from a parent. The jokes and games we added tickled his fancy and made the job a little more fun. And it probably didn’t hurt that he felt special having his own Zoom meeting.

Good job, Seth! Well played, Liz!