Clean Up

We are trying something new in our house. Cleaning up for the kids is the equivalent to asking them to move a mountain. Not going to happen unless they are doing it to get screen time. It is extremely frustrating to repeatedly ask them to clean up and to watch the temper tantrums unfold. So Aaron and I came up with a new approach. It is new to our family. My parents did something similar when I was a kid.

At night Aaron and I go around and sweep up all of the things they left out. Then we lock it up. The kids have to do a chore to get the item out. When we explained this to the kids they were excited for a number of reasons. 1. We won't be nagging them to clean up anymore. And 2. they heard "mom and dad are going to clean up for us!"

So far after one day, we have about a third of the toys locked up in grandma's room. At this rate, in two more days, the kids won't have any toys left. I am giggling as I type this. There are some interesting side effect from this. The kids are now playing with tier 2 toys and enjoying them. These are toys that they don't normally play with but since the tier one toys are gone, they don't have much of a choice. Our house gets easier to clean because there are fewer and fewer toys to clean up. And lastly, I am pretty sure this will help us identify what toys can be sold off because if they aren't interested in doing a chore to get the toy back, then they don't need it.

As for my parent's take on this, we had to shoot baskets to get our cloths and toys back. For Aaron, this would have been a reward for not cleaning up. For me, it was torture. I would have rather done a chore to get my stuff back. This was all part of my parents attempt to get us out of the house and learn a sport. Unfortunately for my mom, I never learned to love basketball.

The real challenge today will be getting John dressed for church since I now have his church cloths. It looks like he might be going to church in corduroy pants in warm weather and wearing a polo shirt that bugs him. With any luck he will want to get his church cloths out for next Sunday.