Sometimes inspiration coalesces rather than strikes. That was my experience as I contemplated the state of my house and my lack of time and energy to accomplish everything. I realized that I was doing too much picking up after the kids. This sort of maid work is a poor use of my time, and yet it needs done. The obvious answer is to make the kids pick up after themselves. Unfortunately this often takes more effort than just picking up after the kids, which is why I haven’t been making the kids do the work. I pondered this situation over the course of several weeks and a plan slowly came together in my mind.
I realized that I needed to institute a system of rewards and consequences. Not just for the kids, but for me as well. If there is no reward for me in making the kids do the work, then the system will have a very short lifespan. One frequent mistake in trying to institute reform is to take on too much at once. Total reformation can work if you have time and energy to really focus on it. I have too many other things, so I needed to pick a few areas of focus.
I decided to stop the accumulation of clothing on the bathroom floors. Those piles of shed clothing grow until I scrape up the archeological layers and put them in the laundry. I put up a sign in each bathroom that announced “Clothing is not allowed on this floor. If I find your clothing here, I will make you clean it up and assign you an extra chore.” That extra chore is the reward for me. By enforcing the rule I get some small task done by someone else. This makes the effort to make a child work, worth it. The extra chore is also a consequence for the kids. Ideally they’ll just stop leaving clothes on the floor and enforcement will never be necessary.
The front room is also a big clutter accumulator. The kids walk in the door and dump backpacks, coats, books, shoes all over the room. The same rule applies for the front room as for the bathrooms. If I find their stuff there, then they have to pick it up and do an extra chore. I didn’t hang a sign with the full rule on it, but I did hang a reminder sign over the couch. It says “this is not a dumping ground.”
The third area that was causing big problems was the video cabinet where we keep our games and movies. I kept finding discs left laying around with no cases. Controllers were left all over the room where they could get stepped on or broken. Games and movies teetered in great stacks. I cleaned the whole area up then hung a sign that says “put it away or it goes to jail.” In this case “jail” is our jail box. Kids can only get stuff out of the jail box by doing an extra chore. I announced to the kids that I was going to be very strict about movies and video games. I’m no longer warning or giving second chances. If these things are left laying around they’ll go to jail.
I’m almost looking forward to them leaving stuff laying around because the extra chores will make my house cleaner.
Brilliant! May I steal the idea?
No you can’t steal it. I give it to you freely. 😉
This assumes you can get them to do the extra chores in the first place. I tear my hair out trying to get our kids to do any chores at all. Only the eldest does any chores at all with any degree of promptness unless stood over every second (which, with my knees etc, I can’t do for long), and even she’s as like as not to just walk off in the middle leaving the job half-finished.
Oh thank you… you really have no idea how many times your little cobbles give me ideas on how to deal with my girls.
I cater the extra chores to the interests and capabilities of the child. Link gets to empty garbage cans far more often than any of the others. Kiki empties and loads dishes more. Gleek and Patches get much smaller chores and I do have to stand over them to make sure the chores are done.
Also I hold activities that they love hostage contingent upon chore completion. The television and computer can not be used if the child has outstanding chores.
I’m glad to hear this. Sometimes I feel like I’m just rambling to myself and boring everyone else.
Never. Even when I don’t comment, I enjoy your entries. Plus they hone your skill as a writer.
I understand that. The problem we run into is that their desire to not pick up their rooms often outweighs their desire to watch television or play on their computers.
The ironic thing is that at times, there are other minor tasks (fetching something from my desk when I’m upstairs, say) that I have to be careful about handing out because if I don’t make sure each of at least Wen and Pirate has something to do, they will both race for it and fight over who gets to do the errand.
Sometimes I feel I can’t win…. life is too much like entropy. 🙂
Cleaning bedrooms
When Sandra was young, her bedroom was sometimes a disaster. (She shared with an older and a younger sister.) I would sometimes announce that if the room wasn’t cleaned today, tomorrow I would clean it and I got to decide what to keep and what to throw away. I would actually sometimes hope they didn’t clean it so I could throw some of the junk (aka “treasures”) away. Sandra’s older sister would carefully stash her little paper umbrellas and party favors, etc. Sandra would pick up a few things and the next day while the girls were at school, I would declutter the bedroom!