I'm too depressed to think about the playroom and their bedrooms. I do love the thread title though, so tempting sometimes!
Overall Rating: 1 vote
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Posted 1 year ago #
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We took all our kids toys out of the playroom and turned it into a TV room again (partly for selling, partly because I was sick of stepping over all their crap on the way to my room). They have an Expedit each (1 has a 4x4 the other a 4x2) in their rooms and a Tub Trug. All their toys books and bits and pieces have to fit into them at the end of the day. If one looks like its overflowing something has to leave. They are allowed to bring toys into the TV room to play but know to put it away at the end of the night. It takes all of 5 minutes and we make it a race - 2 boys, 7 and 5, very competitive!
They have a couple of containerised toys, train set, slotcar set, that live in their wardrobes.
At the end of the day we have a pick up before bedtime and then, if they are bathed and in pyjamas (I have one that likes to sleep naked in summer, the other was in winter pyjamas last night) with teeth cleaned, they get money for their moneybox.
We have only been doing this for the last eight weeks, but it is working well. This week they had enough money to get a Lego police car each (currently in pieces on the familyroom floor being rebuilt) and a Nintendo DS game for eight weeks work. The 5 year old has worked out though if I ask him to do anything, to ask for 5 cents.
Wish I had started it ages ago!!!!Posted 1 year ago # -
Kaz, great tip re: the bribing! I also like having a rule for containing everything in a certain amount of space. I've just finished doing it myself with MY books (everything has to fit on the shelves, no double shelving or stacking on top of each other), and it's filtering down to the kids' rooms. Now, if they get a new book, they have to get rid of one if they want it on their shelves, same with toys. I bribed my daughter to do a big unclutter at the start of the holidays by promising to buy her Kool-aid (hard to find, had to go to the USA foodstore!) so she can dye her hair tomorrow. Gulp! I can't do the $$ thing, I find it hard enough to remember to give them their weekly pocket money :-)
Posted 1 year ago # -
The boys don't get weekly pocket money, this will probably be the way it continues to be paid now. I'm hoping once we move and I have a more normal routine (ie no shiftwork) that we will all get into the habit of our daily chores and nightly cleanup.
Posted 1 year ago # -
any ideas for nightly cleanup with a family of nightowls? We are awful at bedtime routines as it is, adding a tidying up phase to the mix would tip me over the edge I reckon!
Posted 1 year ago # -
oh, and my kids unfortunately don't respond to monetary bribes :(
Posted 1 year ago # -
lottielot: maybe a reward for kids tidying up at night/setting out things for morning could be extra time spent with you, reading a story, or extra artwork time. I remember how much I looked forward to reading a bedtime story with my mom. It also helped me to settle down a bit. But I'm still a nightowl. Mom tried her best, though. It would be rough, avoiding food or money rewards, I bet.
Posted 1 year ago # -
my ds1 reads to himself nowadays, my ds2 loves stories, but not enough to be bribed by them! They do arty stuff at random times when the whim takes them. And unfortunately time spent with me isn't a bribe! Their dad doesn't help either, he'll whisk them off for a fight or to watch telly with him even if it's getting late, and then shout at them for not going to bed when he has massively overstimulated them... But he works long hours, is out a lot and doesn't see a huge amount of them, so it's kind of tricky. They did go to bed on time last night, they had 4 hours spent on a bouncy castle at a party yesterday so they were EXHAUSTED!
On the plus side, this morning I managed to get them up 15 minutes early, and ds1 had time to do his homework and I read 2 chapters of On the Banks of Plum Creek to ds2, and we still got to school early on a Monday, bit of a first. I'm rubbish at setting up and sticking to routines with my kids, it doesn't help that every half term or so everything changes at uni and sometimes their afterschool activities change, so we don't really have a very fixed schedule. Perhaps one thing I could start is a weekly cleanup with the reward of a meal out, they really love eating out. Hm, will think about it and discuss it with the kids. Thanks sunshineR!Posted 1 year ago # -
hi, lottielot. I think that a weekly meal out with the kids is a great idea. Whatever works for you and them, without breaking your budget. As far as schedules go, I think it's very ok to have a bit of flexibility and change with kids; a middle ground between total chaos and anarchy, or being fossilized into stuckness (by the parent?). Such as chances to try a new activity, or eliminate one that really isn't going well for someone. You're already doing this, I can see.
Posted 1 year ago # -
Lottielot: I know what you mean about picking up at bedtimes. We're really bad at it too. At that point, I'm just too tired to even try and tackle it, usually. So, we have moved our "clean-up" time to right before dinner. This works really well if I'm making something that can cook unattended for a few minutes. Then, we take a little bit of time and tidy everything up. Then after dinner, we try and play something that isn't too messy, such as a family board game, etc. I find that we are more likely to stick to this schedule.
Posted 1 year ago # -
good ideas people :) I take them out to eat occasionally anyway, usually to somewhere pretty cheap but nice. I took them to Yo Sushi a few months ago, they LOVED it, even though neither of them likes fish or sushi! They loved that conveyer belt going round and I spent very little. There's something very filling about watching all that food go past! We also go to a carvery for a yummy roast dinner every so often too, they love to go there and it's easier than cooking when we have activities in the evening. I floated the idea to my kids and they're all enthusiastic about it, we've nominated 8pm as our tidy up time and I set an alarm clock, will see how it goes! In fact, my 5 year old kind of came up with the idea himself...Perhaps we'll have a goal of at least 5 short sessions every week, set a timer and do a quick sweep. It's frustrating when we spend ages sorting out their rooms and they end up chaotic only a very short time later due to lack of maintenance motivation. We'll see how it goes.
Posted 1 year ago # -
Posted 1 year ago #
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Wow, interesting is right.
Posted 1 year ago # -
Interesting and sad.
Posted 1 year ago # -
oh yeah, I saw this in a magazine recently, interesting how the topic is so seemingly mundane yet shows such a massive disparity in the world. Very humbling.
Posted 1 year ago # -
How is everyone going with their kids and their clutter?
I posted today on ATAD that I've done yet ANOTHER massive declutter of my 10 yo daughter's room (mainly her wardrobe). She made the choice to have a clear floor space inside her brand new wardrobe (for a reading nook), so her shoes live in a basket by the front door, and the 3 baskets and bins full of stuff that were in her old wardrobe had to be redistributed.
The way we did it was to take the containers OUT of her room and put them in another room. Then we went through every item, and she had to decide 1) keep/chuck/donate and 2) WHERE the item was going to live. She had 3 spare drawers to store things like diaries/plastic tat/yoyos, etc. She decided to let go around 90% of the stuff, most of it because she couldn't decide where to store it! I was amazed at some of the stuff she relinquished, but didn't argue with her, as it obviously wasn't important to her. Hopefully this is the last of the big declutters for her room, as now everything has a place. I'm determined that no more books, items of clothing, toys enter her room without the equivalent leaving it.
Posted 1 year ago # -
yay for you and your dd lazycow :) I helped my ds1 have a good shift around of his bedroom over the half term holidays last week. I took all his books off a big shelving unit, moved the chest of drawers into the corner and put the big bookshelf from my bedroom on top. Most of his books fit on the shelves with his sewing gear on top. There is now a small perspex bookshelf for me to rehome which is unused, a small 2 drawer unit which I need to get rid of or rehome and space in one corner for a desk if he keeps his room tidy for long enough. He has another bookshelf which is half empty for books which come in, neither of us want him to get rid of any books right now as his brother is only just starting to read so will be reading the books he has for years to come hopefully. He has very little other than books and clothes in his bedroom now though, we chucked away a couple of binbags of stuff from his room and he has plenty of room in his drawers for clothes now. His brother: I did a quick swoop round his bedroom last week and straightened things up but I need to wait for him to grow out of some of his toys before I can get rid of more. Both boys are being really good about doing a daily 2 minute tidy of their rooms which keeps them from going too badly wrong...
Posted 1 year ago #
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