I love the joy of having a completely clean house, but unfortunately it only lasts for about 10 minutes before someone spills or wants to make a cheese and crackers feast in the kitchen. Years ago I learned how to let this go and only have clean house envy when I visit the homes of friends whose children have long since left the nest.
Since that season is a long ways off for me, I’ve decided to find happiness amongst the chaos best I can. It’s especially challenging when we’re all home during the summer months. I’m constantly jumping over elaborate Barbie villages or abandoned stacks of books. I let them spread out and have their merry good time until the end of the day. I give everyone a five-minute warning and then I say, “It’s time for 10 minutes of tidying up.” (The reward for this is watching TV until Dad comes home, so I can make dinner in peace and the house is [mostly] clean when he gets home.)
Sometimes I assign them rooms to clean up depending how bad the damage is and depending on how well they work together to clean up. It’s amazing how quickly they can clean when they have new episodes of “Hannah Montana” waiting for them on the TiVo. I use this 10 minutes to supervise and to clean up the kitchen for dinner.
To make it more fun we’ll throw on some music or I’ll bribe them with a pre-dinner snack. If it’s not messy enough to warrant a full 10-minute commitment I’ll have each of the girls pick up 10 things and put them away. The first one to finish gets to pick the show to watch. My four-year-old is such a great worker that the threat of watching “Dora the Explorer” if Cam finishes her chore first usually makes the older two stop whining and get on their feet.
Question: What do you do to motivate your kids to pick up their stuff at the end of the day?
As I read your post this morning, I was VERY frustrated with my children and their cleaning. They had one job on Monday….to clean their room. They had one job on Tuesday…..to clean their room, and it was very quickly becoming the only job they were working on today as well.
As I began to break down and cry with frustration, I decided that I was still in charge.
I gave them 5 minutes to finish and then set the timer. When they weren’t done, I kicked them out of their room. I got trash bags and everything that was not in it’s place went into the bag. After collecting THREE bags of their things, I hid them. Then I cleaned the rest of the room and vacuumed.
They will only get it back by cleaning something else and keeping their (now clean) room clean. If they don’t earn it back within two weeks, it goes in the trash.
We’ll see if it works?
Tara,
I say, “Desperate times call for desperate measures.” I have done taken the same tactic and times and it seems to have a lasting impact. In fact, I haven’t done it in years because it worked so well. Good luck to you! Report back on how it goes.
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