I wish I could tell you how to get your kids to clean their rooms. But. sigh, I can’t do that. I am sorry to say I have kids that play with toys and wear a lot of clothes.
What I can tell you is how NOT to get your kids to clean their rooms
- Yell and scream at them – this has never worked for me, ever
- Bribe them – with toys, treats. This may work for one time but it does not get them to clean it on their own and keep it clean
- Ground Them until it is clean. Let me know if this one works for you
- Have impossibly high standards. You need to take into consideration the age of the child and how much you expect them to do.
- Threaten them with taking away all their toys/clothes/anything on the floor, if they don’t get it clean.
- Give them vague orders to go clean their room. You need to be specific on what you want done.
How do you make it easy for kids to clean their rooms?
6 comments:
Ha ha, good post.
I actually DO take away all their stuff (not just threaten). They actually thank me for that. lol. I let them earn their stuff back by keeping it neat and then of course, they get enough stuff, the cycle starts over again. But I'm trying to remember the list you posted. And teach them that he who is faithful in the little things will be given more.
Honestly we kept our rooms like pigs as kids and almost all of us grew up to keep a neat/ orderly home in spite of it. It wasn't as though we didn't know how. I keep trying to remember that. :)
It doesn't get any better when they are teenagers. Sorry!
Sarah Faith - good point, growing up my mother used to just close the doors to the kids rooms that were messy. She had a high tolerance for kids messes.
As for getting better as teenagers, this pic was of my teenager's room after 2 days of cleaning.
Sarah, when my kids were little I used "toy jail". But the kids hardly ever missed those toys. Guess they had so too many.
We recently had to move everything out of most of our rooms for new carpeting, and as we brought things back in, we sorted and donated a lot of Kat's toys. Having too many toys is often a curse rather than a blessing; she can't decide what to play with most of the time. So, culling some of them out helped.
We also are just today starting to use My Job Chart to keep track of her chores. One of her daily chores is to pick up toys, and cleaning her room is a weekly chore for her. I'm not sure if it will work, but she seems excited about trying it.
Yes I agree with you, kids often get too many toys, and it does not happy all at once. Toys and clothes have a way of accumulating. I am a fan of the seasonal purge and we purged just a few weeks ago, clothes and toys but somehow my teenager did not get the memo. Hence the condition of her room.
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