Every night after bath time it's pick up toys time. Every night I get the whining and crying of a child who loves to make messes but hates to clean them. Every night I still enforce clean up time. Every night I get angry because every night there is whining and crying. On rare occasions when I am feeling most generous I sneak in during bath time and do it all the RIGHT way because it is easier than the same ol' same ol'.
Usually daddy is very mild tempered. Ok always. I'm so jealous. But even tonight the boy who wouldn't clean got on his last nerve. Maybe it was the way the boy whined. Maybe it was the way the boy insisted he needed help when it was him and him alone that made the hideous mess. Maybe it was the way the boy said that we should give his toys away to a boy who really wanted them. But probably it was the way the boy whined that set daddy off.
Daddy told the boy that if he didn't go to his room to clean before he came back with a bag that his toys would be gone. The child didn't move. The child was excited that he didn't have to pick up his beloved toys. Then he watched while mommy and daddy collected the mess and carried it away. He was all smiles.
I wonder what the 4 year old will think tomorrow or the next day when to his surprise more than half his toys are missing.
1 comment:
Great lesson. We have trained our kids to be able to answer this question honestly: "I see you're having trouble cleaning up your stuff every day, do you need to get rid of some toys because you have too many?" Most of the time they say no but every few months they'll say yes and we'll get rid of one or two, sometimes more if it has been a long time since they've purged. Also our organizing/storage of toys was established together. For instance I wanted legos in containers and not dumped but the boys couldn't build without digging through them. So I had to go out and buy a bigger, shallower, longer container so that they could swirl them and find what they needed without dumping. We just had to upgrade their container of hero factory for this reason. But also, if there is an item I am finding on the floor every single day then that item will be tossed/given away. Good luck! Our four nephews (2, 2, 4, 4) are at Grandma's with us and two of them are ULTRA whiners.... as in SUPER whiners....seriously it gets old FAST.
Post a Comment