Hi, I am mom of 3 little girls who are 4.5yr, 3yr and 18mo. It seems like all I do the whole day is picking up their toys, their clothes, etc after them. I was inspired by a story I heard from a friend's friend who has 8 kids and she says that it is not hard at all, their home is clean most of the time, because she thought them to clean up after themselves and to be very organized. I want to be organized myself, but not organized by nature... Where and how do I start teaching them to help me with chores and keeping our home clean?
#1 rule for kids: the toy/activity has to be put away properly....BEFORE getting out anything else.
The exception would be dramatic play when you need a baby, the kitchen stuff....& even sometimes building blocks to make a road/house/etc.
As for chores: make a chart & actively help them achieve goals. Use stickers to reward them.
Reward charts have never worked for me because I can't seem to keep up with them.
We do the FlyLady system (which I'm sure you've heard of on here) and we used to do the House Fairy.
The House Fairy (check the website) comes unexpected to your child's room at night (or when they are not in the room) and checks to see if the room is clean. If the room IS clean, then she leaves a surprise! If it's not clean she leaves fairy dust (confetti).
The website has free videos that tell about the House Fairy so your children can "meet" her. If you sign up you can have access to videos, certificates, etc. but you don't have to to make the House Fairy real.
I would buy $1 surprises from the dollar section at Target or the dollar store. Often I'd buy things my daughter needed, the House Fairy often brought new toothbrushes or hair rubber bands, or new bath soap or bubble bath. She also brought school supplies like packets of pencils or erasers.
Our House Fairy came twice a week, but your House Fairy can come as often as you want. However, the cool thing is the kids never know when the House Fairy is coming so they should keep their room clean at all times just in case. We did a 15 minute cleanup before bed every night, just in case. It's wonderful to make the House Fairy the motivation, and it was easier for me than reward charts. Our House Fairy also left many positive notes in fancy script, and one day I found a box where my daughter had saved all of them!
My daughter is now too old for the House Fairy but she kept her room clean while she was young just in case! Now it's just habit to take 15 minutes to clean up before bed.
It works! And your children are just the right age to enjoy the magic :)
What works for me is giving mine specific tasks. My kids have a laundry basket in thier room. 1st thing I do is make sure all laundry is picked up. Then I tell them to pick up all dolls, now pick up all your books, and so on till all toys are picked up. We sing the cleanup song while we do it or I put music on really loud and we dance around or race doing it. It really helped when my husband outlawed toys in the living room. Making them keep it all, at least in thier rooms has helped tremendously when it comes time to pick up. I recently printed clipart off the internet of socks, shorts, tshirts, pjs and taped them to the appropriate drawers and bins. Now, there is no doubt where clothing goes. I'm going to get around to doing that for toys next.
I think your girls will pick up after themselves after they have had repeated the act over and over and over. They are still young and will be able to pick up a new habit pf cleaning up after themselves if you remind them when they need to do it. You will have to remind them for a while and eventually it will become second nature to them and they will be doing it themselves. When I was little, my mom used to play a game with us before bedtime. My sister and I would stand in different corners of the room and my mom would call out a color. We then had to find all of the items that were that color and put them away. My sister and I would try to get the most or find the last item when my mom said we missed something. This is a great game to play with girls who have lots of toys out at the same time, or things with small/multiple parts. You will have to make cleaning a part of your daily routine and eventually your girls will just go and do it themselves because they know that it is cleanup time. Making it fun is a great motivator and will help when they have a huge mess that they feel is impossible to clean.
Telling my daughter to pick up her toys doesn't work but she is still under the impression that the vacuum cleaner has the power to suck up anything in its path and I have done nothing to dissuade her that this isn't true. If she gives me attitude about picking up the gauntlet of Lego's, marbles and other odds and ends scattered down the hallway like little land mines waiting to be trod upon, I just yell out, "I'm vacuuming today! Uh oh! Looks like a lot of stuff is going to get sucked up!" which is followed by the frantic squeal of my child as she races to the room I'm in, begging me not to start yet as she tosses her stuff hand over fist into the protective containers where the vacuum can't get them.
Vacuum wins again.
It took me a week or so to do it, she was almost 3 years then, I was very firm with her you don't pick up I will not bring you out and told her someone would fall over if toys are left around. She protest and cried but I continued to insist sometimes I said will give all your toys away or throw them away. This might sound harsh to some people but its just teaching them cause and effect and to appreciate their toys. Told her that if you do not take care of your toys will not get any more for you, she got that message after awhile and now she cleans up after and even pick up her 8 month old sisters toys.
I believe in strict upbringing and discipline in children these days parents love their kids too much that they feel the pain in disciplining scared to hurt their kids emotions, but actually they need to be trained young so that good behavior will be a natural thing to them by the time they are 7.
I think if you consistently tell them and make it part of their daily routine, they will learn to expect that every day.
I got a book today at Target ($1 spot at the front of the store), Berenstein Bears "Pick Up and Put Away" book. Very simple Board book where the kids put their toys up at the end of the day before they go to bed. If it helps - then it was totally worth one dollar!
I think it helps to have specific areas for things to go. This way everyone knows exactly where it goes and there is little room for question. I always wanted to be organized enough to print off pictures of the toys (like Tracy!;) but it never happened. My kids just learned what basket or shelf holds what thing and that was good enough! They know where to put their shoes when they want to take them off but don't want to go all the way upstairs to put them away, they each have laundry baskets for dirty clothes, stuff like that. My house is far from completely organized, but these small things make it a lot easier!
Mine is 8 and she still has a hard time remembering to pick up. What has worked with clothes is telling her anything left on the floor is mine and if she wants it back she has to do a "chore" or pay me a quarter. She wears uniforms to school so after the uniforms accumulate all week on the floor and then she needs one and no more are hanging in the closet, she comes running. Works like a charm.
With toys, I give her 10-15 minutes to clean up, and if there is still stuff on the floor after the buzzer, it gets taken to Goodwill. If you don't care enough about it to take care of it and put it away properly, then maybe someone at Goodwill will!
Yours are young. Try a reward chart. That does nothing for my 8 year old. Good luck!
