Family Pool Chores

Having a swimming pool in the backyard is good family fun, but it can also be a lot of work.  But that burden doesn’t have to rest all on one person.  We recommend dividing up pool maintenance chores among members of the family.  Everyone can and should take a part in maintaining your swimming pool. Here are some helpful ways to spread out the family pool chores:

For the littlest ones:

Buy some small, hand-held pool nets.  Even your youngest swimmers can easily spend a few minutes skimming leaves and debris off the water surface.  You can even make this into a game:  the first child to fill an entire net gets to choose the pool game or gets first choice of fun pool floats.

For older children:

You can teach your school-age children how to test the pool chemicals (be sure to supervise, especially at the beginning).  And, depending on their strength, they can also use the pool brush and skimmers on poles.  Active kids also make excellent precision divers for things dropped to the bottom or the pool (an earring, a rogue hair clip, a ball, the dog’s toy. . . ).

Adults and teenagers:

We recommend leaving chlorine maintenance and other harsh chemicals to grown ups.  You can and should explain to younger children what you are doing and also warn them to stay away from the chemicals.  Chlorine tablets sometimes look like sidewalk chalk, hockey pucks, or any variety of harmless and interesting things.  Keep them out of reach of young children and explain to them what the chemicals are and what they do.

Not only will involving the whole family make pool care and maintenance a breeze, by investing in its upkeep, your children will take better care of it all the time.  A child responsible for cleaning things out of the pool is much less likely to throw something into it!