There is a hilarious meme regarding dust being a protective coating on your furniture. While it is pretty funny, it is not true. The issue is that if you have any people in your home with bad allergies, dust is quite harmful for their breathing.

This is the same concept as using a spray bottle and a paper towel. The reason we chose to put this task in this age group is that the dusting spray is in a little different container, the chemicals are a little more than you probably want a preschooler handling, and if they do have allergies, they have had time to develop so that you can plan accordingly.

You may even want to hold off if your child exhibits severe asthma or allergy symptoms until they are under control. You may also want to read the blog on ALLERGIES AND TASK for more insight.

A microfiber rag is the best tool (aside from the dusting spray) for making this job super easy. Dust and dirt cling to its Velcro-like fibers. Feather dusters redistribute the dust to the area around them. Microfiber dusters are good but have no inexpensive replacement as they will need to be washed often to keep picking up dirt. The disposable kind is also good but is not cost-effective. A bundle of microfiber rags are cheap and can be changed out as much as you need.

Pre-talk your child about what items you want to be dusted. Start small. You may want to choose to limit dusting to a particular room for a while. If they want to keep going, by all means, have at it! Have them spray the rag lightly with the dusting spray and wipe each item down using a circular motion. Depending on the amount of dust, they may need to change out the rag a few times to get things clean.

And that’s it! Rags go in the laundry, and the spray goes back in the bucket for future use.