Every weekend, children – have to – cleanup and organize their own living and playing areas. Then 5 minutes later, until next weekend, they run around like a tornado and we end up with a house like a bomb exploded in the middle. Now that they are 7 and 5, I do not clean up their territories anymore. Unfortunately, they do not keep it tidy or they do not clean them up before I tell them to do. (I am not the most tidy person either) However, once I give them a go, they do it.
Few things that work like a charm:
- Giving them a list with detailed tasks and assignments. Now that they can read, I skip the pictures and just write them down.
- Inviting their friends for a playdate.
- Being invited to a playdate (I just use this as an excuse to get things done)
- Bringing out the vacuum cleaner and telling them at XX:XX time, I will start vacuuming whatever is left on the floor.
- For some odd reason (Hi there Pavlov!), “Clean-up song” still works after all these years.
I’m right there with you. You should see the “homework room” right now with Legos strewn across the floor. and I had them all sorted by colors into their own containers. *sigh*
We TOTALLY do the vacuum, too. And they lost some Legos last weekend because of it 😉 But the Clean Up song? I might have to try that one. It’d still work on 7 and 9 year olds, right?