As a parent with so many little ones in the house, I’ve learned that the more self sufficient you can make your children, the easier your life will be. I’ve found that once I spend even a little bit of time training and teaching them how to do things, they quickly become adept at a task and it frees me up for other things (like fixing the things they invariably break around the house).
The main problem I’ve found with my children becoming self sufficient, though, is that they are so short! (Go figure)
In my house we have a variety of step stools. We almost have one in every room of the house. I’ve tried several options over the years, but I wanted to share with you the best choices we’ve found.
The first is the foldable step stool. We like these because they can be folded flat and are light so they can be moved out of the way when not needed. To a child, the deck space on these stools is plenty big, and they get pretty excited about unfolding them and setting them in place (although I wish they were as excited about putting them away). When it’s time to brush teeth they tend to do so at the same time, so there is enough space to line up two or three in a row. In the kitchen, whenever we cook, there is usually one or two who want to be able to look at what we are making. I’m all for them learning, so long as they don’t get too close to the hot stuff. This is all a good learning opportunity and the convenience of a step stool that isn’t the size of a dining room chair.
The second is a foldable three step ladder. This is great for not just the little ones, but great for mom and dad trying to reach upper shelves, light bulbs, or the occasional ceiling fan with the tangled cord from the birthday balloon. The ladder we like is very sturdy, easy to fold, and doesn’t weigh so much it is a pain to move around. We have three of them, two for downstairs and one for upstairs. Two we keep in closets so we can reach the upper shelves, and the third we keep in the kitchen between the side of the refrigerator and the wall. By far, the most often used is the one in the kitchen. Not only does it help reach all of the upper shelves in the kitchen cabinets, it is also great for the really little ones who can sit on the top step or if they stand on the top step there is a handle to hold on to.
We’ve found that with having multiple children having plenty of step stools that are conveniently located helps our children to learn and quickly become self sufficient – which frees mom and dad to focus on other things – at least until we have to clean up a mess from one who tried something they weren’t quite ready for. At least having a good step stool around offers the best chance for making a mess safely.
Great minds think alike! We have exactly the same step stools, and have given our grown-up kids their own. We even store ours in the same place! Our only regret is we bought the two-step version, not the three.