Fun-cleaning system: To teach children to establish the habit of sharing housework

Abstract

This project originated with a single question: Why do many young adults today lack basic life skills? This question came to mind when I noticed that most of my college friends are clueless about how to do the laundry or how to use a vacuum cleaner. After giving this question considerable thought, I began to research changes in family relationships, culture, and psychology to better understand this phenomenon. I have focused my research on Taiwan, my country. Most families in Taiwan distribute housework between the parents rather than among the children. The primary duty of children is to study hard and earn good grades to bring honor to their family. In this situation, children are unlikely to do housework because of their schoolwork load and leave the responsibility to their parents, which leads to poor behavior on the part of the children, who have no idea how to perform housework. Additionally, when parents are responsible for all the housework, it results in greater stress and less quality family time. Children who grow up in this scenario often lack experience in doing housework and in receiving guidance from their parents. Without these basic life skills, it is more difficult for people to live independently, which is why more and more young adults are living with their parents even after they have begun working. Therefore, I plan to design a system and devices to help parents as well as children in this situation. Parents will be able to teach basic housework skills to their children in a playful way so that children will be encouraged to start helping around the house.