Since the summer holidays my son has taken over Sunday dinner. Pasta, egg fried rice, and last week a proper pappu that even my mother approved of. Very proud of him 🙂 But the kitchen after. Every vessel used, oil all over the stove, onion skins on the floor. He says the cook doesn't clean, that's how it works in restaurants. Do I push the cleaning now, or leave it for some time so he doesn't lose interest?
Take the win for now. Our girls are younger, but when the elder started making her own breakfast we let the mess go for the first few weeks, then added one cleaning job at a time. First the stove, later the vessels. Adding everything at once is how it stops being fun.
I would gently disagree with waiting. At 14, cleaning up is part of cooking, not an extra chore attached to it. In our house the rule was only that the kitchen had to be usable for breakfast. How it got there was up to him. It took a few Sundays of late nights, and then he started cleaning as he went.
Both points are fair. The tradeoff as I see it: push early and you risk losing Sunday dinner; wait too long and "the cook doesn't clean" becomes the house rule. My son is only 8, so I'm going by my brother at that age, not my own experience. One cleaning job he owns from now, and a review in a month, seems a reasonable middle.
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