The Mom Connection: Get Your Kids to Clean Up

I am teaming up this week with Naptime Review and Two in Diapers for this exciting series about motherhood.

Siblings and sharing: Where do you draw the line between requiring sharing and allowing for personal space with certain toys?

 Now on to this week’s topic!

Here are some tips that have helped
me alleviate the craziness that clutter brings. I only clean my daughter’s
room on Sunday. I try not to let the mess that fills the room the minute after
“we” pick up her toys consume me. I also purchased large organization tubs at
Target. I just toss everything in and wheel into her closet and shut the door. We also pick up our toys in the playroom every
night before bed. If she is stalling, which she does, I set a timer.  If her toys aren’t picked up when the timer
goes off, she loses TV after bath. Thankfully, the timer seems to motivate her.

 Getting the kids to clean up toys is actually a very recent topic of concern for
me. In 2008, I gave birth to a beautiful little baby girl named Emily, and then
our lives turned into a whirlwind of activity that included two more babies and
before I knew it, four years later, I was grudgingly cleaning up roomfuls
of toys during nap time while wistfully daydreaming about sitting on the
couch reading a novel. One day my mom snapped me back to reality by
pointing out that my littles were well old enough to be cleaning up after
themselves. Oh yeah, thats one thing I’m supposed to be teaching them.

My
first method of getting the kids to clean up included some yelling, a bit of
bribing and lots of threatening. Fail. This left me with a messy house, three
cranky kids and lots of frustration.

I decided it was time to get
creative. Lately we’ve been finding many more ways to clean up that are much
more fun and exciting. For example, when cleaning up the blocks, we pick them up
by color. I let the kids pick which colors in what order. First, we might put all of
the red blocks into the basket, then the yellow and so on. Sometimes I let them
each pick a type of toy to be responsible for – such as Emily picking up
the books and Bentley picking up the toy cars. One of our very favorites,
however, is pulling out each basket in our family room and lining them up in the
middle of the floor. We then pick up each toy and try to toss it into the
correct basket. This usually results in lots of giggles, but you can bet the
toys get cleaned up!

One last thing, I have to say on this topic is that
the more organized your play area is, the better. Our small toy area is very
organized {you can view it here}. There is one
clearly-marked basket for each type of toy, and one basket for
miscellaneous toys. Everything has a home. The more confusing and chaotic a toy
space is, the more overwhelming it is for kids {and parents!} to clean
up.

So I supposed my advice is – get organized and have fun!

When their daughter was born and as she got
older, I was out numbered and needed help with the disasters they created. So I
encouraged them to help me clean up. The older one was so used to me doing
everything that he just wouldn’t help. I had to say things like, “Oh your baby
sister is doing such a good job cleaning up, could you help her?” or “Let’s see
who can clean up the most” or “the fastest” etc. Cleaning eventually became
a part of his routine. 

My suggestion? Get them started early where they are used
to it and it is just habit. My daughter knows what to do when I say let’s clean
up now and, although I have to go behind her, I feel I am setting her up for
good habits in the future. And she likes it because we try to make it a game.
She is even learning how to organize her toys now as well.