messy rooms – Rebecca Cuneo Keenan

How to Get Kids to Clean Up

I spent the better part of the Christmas holidays overhauling the playroom. I moved all the toddler and preschooler toys closer to the bottom of the staircase leading from the kitchen so I could keep an eye on Mary from there. I moved an old couch and armchair into the basement and set up a craft table and shelves for Lego and sports cards and board games. I sorted and sifted. I even purged a little.

We kept it up fairly well for a little while. Until last week.

My kids most favourite way to play is to pull out ALL OF THE TOYS and spend hours setting them up just so. All of the play food in the play kitchen is okay, but you know what’s even better? Making a salad out of Monopoly money and broken crayons and Lego heads and game pieces! So this right here was just them getting set up. “We can’t clean up! We haven’t even played yet! Tomorrow! We promise!” they sang out in unison. Or something like that.

Before I knew it an entire week had passed and the playroom had been left for dead because even the kids can’t handle the filth and they’ve settled in to take over the main floor as well.

Parents, don’t let them.

1. Tell them to clean up the playroom. Hahaha. This is obviously just a preliminary step. Obviously they won’t listen, won’t care, will get distracted or otherwise not pick up a damn thing.

2. Get angry. Raise your voice a little. Speak sternly. Use their middle names. Do whatever it takes to let them know that you really mean it this time. They will still protest. “It’s too messy. I can’t do it by myself. I’m tired. Whaaaaa.” That’s okay.

3. Hold up a black plastic garbage bag and threaten to throw out all their stuff. Be specific and give them a reasonable task, though. Like, I said anything left on the carpet after fifteen minutes would be thrown out. It’s not fair if you don’t think they can actually finish the job. Then, every five minutes, I prodded them to keep at it. After fifteen minutes, I saw they were working in earnest, so I let them take some extra time to finish the task.

Ta da!

Okay, it’s not an organizational wonder and the carpet badly needs vacuuming. But still. I can walk through the room!

While this was going down many people on Twitter were pretty insistent that I would actually have to throw out their toys. Luckily, it didn’t come to that. I was maybe going to hide them away for a time or throw out a couple junked up things I wanted to get rid of anyway and let them earn back the rest.

What do you think? Do you have to put your money where your mouth is? Would you actually throw out your kids’ toys?

X-Treme Board Game Disaster

Confession: I can’t get my kids to pick up after themselves.

It’s worse than that, in fact. They like to take entire toy bins and games with a zillion pieces and just dump them out all over the floor. Leave them alone for a few minutes and you will return to find a room that looks less like some children have been playing and more like a madman has been rifling through all the drawers and shelves, throwing and breaking things willy nilly.

We had taken all of the board games they’ve been given as gifts and put them away in a cabinet in the office. They’re really too young for board games, anyway, without full adult participation. During a visit with Ed’s parents last night, however, Colum followed me down to help choose a board game for him to play with his grandparents. He claimed to already know where the games were kept and I reminded him that he wasn’t to get them out on his own. They played Sorry and Guess Who, said goodnight to grandma and grandpa and went to bed.

End scene.

I’m upstairs nursing Mary, getting her changed and dressed, getting dressed myself and am engrossed in assorted other morning business. The kids are downstairs playing or watching TV, I assume. I come down to find ALL OF THE BOARD GAMES including two versions of Monopoly opened and their contents strewn across the living room. I dare anybody to go from zero to utter destruction faster than my two oldest kids. The only game they’d left downstairs was 90’s Trival Pursuit, of course. I don’t think there’s a single soul under the age of 30 who is even tempted by that one. (But if you are over 30 … Dudes, 90’s Trivial Pursuit! My place! After bedtime!)

The upshot is that I spent all morning cleaning and organizing various game pieces and play monies. I tried to yell at them to clean everything up, but it was clear they were in WAY over their heads. If I wanted actual games that could ever be played with again (and, believe me, I totally considered the big garbage bag instead), then I’d have to do this myself. The Monopoly with which Colum is utterly fascinated, but is way too old for him, is put away where nobody but me will ever find it, the linen closet. The rest of the games are put back into the office cabinet and will be taken away for a LONG time should they be pulled out without permission again.

Still, though. My kids don’t pick up after themselves even aside from X-TREME BOARD GAME DISASTERS ™. I’ve tried everything. And, by everything, I mean that I’ve tried using every kind of empty threat that I can think of. I know there are other (better!) ways of getting your kids to tidy up on a regular basis, but they all seem to involve copious amounts of time and energy, of which I am in short supply.

So, dear readers, what is the exact, magic empty threat that will finally work? Okay, fine, I’ll even consider more arduous approaches that involve actual parenting and discipline and all that jazz. I’m getting desperate.