Do your kids do chores? At what age do they start? My girls' playroom has been a disaster for about a week now. I'm talking can't-get-through-the-doorway-looks-like-a-tornado-hit disaster. The only way I can get her to clean it is if I sit in there with her and tell her what to do every step of the way. Sometimes we do that, but if I'm supervising the playroom the dishes aren't putting themselves away, the diapers aren't washing themselves, and the rice from last night's dinner is still stuck to the floor and the table and the girls' chairs and who knows where else.
Telling her she can't leave the room until it is clean really doesn't work. It is the playroom after all.
Threatening to take the toys away if she doesn't pick them up also doesn't work. We tried that for awhile and ended up with most of the toys in a box in the garage and she didn't care.
If I don't push her she sits there and plays and if I do push she sits there and cries.
Any advice on how to making picking up toys less of a chore? She's not quite 4 years old, am I just expecting too much?
6 comments:
At this age they really do need to be told what to do. I start by telling Rook that he needs to put 3 toys way. (telling which toys.) And he comes and gets me when it's done. We make a big fuss over a good job done. We found that if we give him a huge "clean your room" it's just to much for him to remember and get through. Overwhelming I guess. But three things are totally do able.
With Chloe I have always (still do) had to tell her one category at a time to put away. I tell her go put away the books then come tell me when you are done with that. Then Ill tell her okay now stuffed animals ect.-usually working with the messiest items first then down. You can also do it by color. Taking things away never worked for her, but rewards did, or not letting her join in on something fun until she was done. She is still a very mess child and at 8 acts like she cant see the mess around her. Elijah will help clean up only if I make it a game or offer a reward, he also likes the clean up song, which I never realized I sang until he began singing it.
Alot of times I tell them the one category thing as well. Also, anything she asks to do (play outside, have a snack, watch a video) say is the playroom clean? If she says no, then tell her she can do it after it's clean. Once the porch (which is like our playroom) gets that bad I basically don't let the boys do anything until it's clean. That is my answer, is the porch clean?
Count me third for the category method. I had to do this with my daughter (now 26) and with my granddaughter (now 7). It works well, I think, and also gives them practice on sorting, categorizing, classifying, etc.
I don't know if this is helpful, but my parents had limits on the amount of toys allowed out at once. We played with only two kinds of toys at a time (say dolls plus kitchen set, but not dolls, kitchen set and legos). If Mom or Dad spied us with a third kind of toy out they'd remind us to choose one type to put back. Of course, sometimes we just made a big mess of things, but this helped lower the everyday chances.
I've read recently about the few toys at a time thing, like putting them all up in the closet and they can trade out if they want to but can't have everything out all at once. I'd like to put this in practice early, but we'll see! :)
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