Have you ever heard of the garbage bag method? Well, my mother(a tidy little house keeper) taught me this technique for when you just can't stand the mess any more. Are you ready? It's kind of complicated.....you scoop up EVERYTHING into as many garbage bags as it takes and then... stuff them somewhere until you are ready to deal with it one bag at a time.Ahhh. I feel better just typing it.
We all have those moments when we just need the mess to disappear so we can stop hyperventilating and at least try to enjoy our children for half a day. I recently did this in the kids' bedrooms. It's time to down size! The kids are getting bigger. They have so much stuff they just don't use and no new baby is coming along soon to save things for. It's hard for me to decide what to find room for in their rooms, what to store and maybe rotate, and what to get rid of all together. I think I'm finally up to the challenge.
But I want to know. How do y'all (my tidy mother is southern) handle the cleaning of your children's rooms? I'm putting up a new poll(the data from my last poll was truly illuminating) so you can totally answer the easy way, but feel free to elaborate in the comments!
I generally leave it to my kids and I don't expect perfection. And generally, they do a pretty good job. But when I let them get away with not doing it for so long that I can't walk in to sing the good night song, I figure the responsibility officially becomes mine. Plus I figure I am responsible for setting the limits for how much stuff they can keep, and making sure that adequate storage and organization is available for said stuff.
How about you?
10 comments:
Okay I left a comment but it didn't show. I think you might have bought your toys at the wrong store. Mine are magical and clean up after the kids play with them. It's kind of like Toy Story except they are very obedient. BUT since you are too cheap and you won't buy those kind of toys you can always do my mothers alternative. Just yell at your kids and tell them you are going to throw them away...and do so. :) It only takes an American Doll to get thrown in the trash to make a point!
Love the poll! I am one of those anal mom's where everything has to be picked up before bed because I hate waking up to a mess in the morning. I always say my house may not always be sterilized, but it will be picked up. Thankfully, I found a really cool shelving unit with baskets that hide just about everything. That way, it can be a mess inside the baskets, but I don't have to look at it. I got the idea from Pottery Barn, but didn't want to fork over the $2500 to pay for it. The girls have done a pretty good job of getting into this habit, although it still takes a little bit of nagging from time to time. Hopefully that helps!
If our rooms got too bad my mom would put it all in a trash bag and we would have to earn stuff back! I have done the same thing with my girls and it worked cause we would say "If you help set the table then you can earn back 3 items in the bag". Now that we are at my parents though and Grace is getting older they work together to clean it up! I go in to help with things that they can't do, or if I am feeling generous but I also use the "out of sight out of mind" tactic when I just can't deal with it. I do have to say though since most of their stuff is in storage it has helped soooo much!! I think when we get back into our own place they will each get three toys and a few outfits and call it good!! :)
I hate having toys in my kids room just for the simply fact that my kids would never go to sleep they would play all night. But believe or not their rooms still get messy. They think the laundry basket is the floor and they love to take all the blankets off their beds. 90% of the time they have to clean it themselves and occasionally I will go in and organize everything and put it the way I want and then we start again. They have even started putting their clothes away. I would probably start by going in with them and going through everything and organizing it and them from that point let them do it. Maybe try bribing them with a treat of their choice after (that method has really worked around here, for alot of things). Good luck! Oh and my mom used the garbage bag method except once it was in the bag it went in the trash, it is amazing how much stuff we don't remember we had.
Hi Jill! When you get a great answer, let me know. I have resorted to locking up half of the toys at a time in 3 under the bed foot lockers and a pad-lock and I swear the room looks WORSE! I give up. I won't even go to that side of the house right now. And I can't even let my little nephew play in there because we'd never find him again! *sigh*
Connor is in a room with Chase, but they can both be messy. They are responsible every morning for getting their things cleaned up. If it starts getting out of hand, they have to go in and stay and do it, or sometimes Bryce goes in and gives instruction. When mine were younger cleaning up roo, brushing your teeth, they were called start duties. A list of those duties that had to be done and their chores for the week or whatever were on that list on their door. When they do it, they can put a sticker, whatever works for yours. Just an idea!
When I was a kid we were responsible for cleaning our room everyday. I was/am also one of those kids when I don't like people to help me. It stresses me out and they don't do it the right way. But occasionally when I just had too much stuff (I'm a pack rat at that) and my mom would want to de-clutter, my mom would send me off for a day to play with a friend, or I remember spending a week with a friend in Utah, even EFY, I would come back to a spotless room. It was one of those things I hated/loved. She was much better at getting rid of clothes/shoes I didn't wear, things I didn't use, papers from school that were SO OLD and things like that. Then she would normally keep a bag of things she wasn't sure about but I appreciated not being there and not having a say in what she threw out because it is sure I would have thrown a fit. I too remember doing the garbage bag method when I wasn't allowed to go anywhere until my room was clean and organized. I grabbed a couple garbage bags and hid them in the garage. I ended up forgetting about them completely until a few months later I came across them. It is surprising how much stuff you really don't miss. So though kids are capable of cleaning their rooms everyday, I think a good mommy clean is good now and then.
I'm so not a clutter person so when my kids were little like yours they didn't own a whole lot of toys, things, clutter, etc. So everything they owned either went in a toy box or on a single book shelf. Clean up was very easy. I also gave toys away every December to make room for new Christmas presents they would get. Now that they are older, they have to clean their rooms 2-3 times a week and I clean them "my way" every now and then. :)
first off....nothing is in their rooms but clothes and a few personal items, so if it's messy it's never really that messy. second, justin gets to go places/have special privileges (like lunch) when it is clean. mean, i know :)
i love the bag thing. i'll do that one of these days. a crazy day.
lOVED Marylin's idea of having the kids have to earn their stuff back!! I never know what to do. You want your kids to learn responsibility and blah blah blah but you also want them to enjoy their childhood and not feel like you have to nag them all the time...
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