Monday, June 6, 2011

Away or the garbage and the two-minute turnaround

A friend told me how her father used to help her clean her bedroom when she was a kid. Every few weeks, he would get fed up with the mess, and he would come in with a big black trash bag and start throwing everything away. And then he would say, “All this stuff is going in the dumpster right now!” But he didn’t have the heart to throw out her toys. So he would hide the bag in the garage instead, where she would sneak in, find the bag and put everything back in her room. And the cycle continued.

How do you get your kids to pick up toys? It’s kind of a sisyphean task, no? That boulder just keeps rolling back down the hill.

In my home, I clean up the toy room myself. Because I’m the one who wants it clean. My children sleep the sleep of the just in a tiny, spartan bedroom free of toys, and would happily play atop a carpet of toy detritus in their playroom. When it gets too messy, they just move their play into the living room and drive me crazy. So I clean up their toys myself.

They certainly know HOW to clean up, as everything is organized and labeled with pictures and easy to put away. They just don’t, you know, want to. And really, who does? Most of the time I just leave it messy and shut the door, but if it’s getting clean, I’m the one doing it.

But I do want to involve them in the process and gradually build up their cleaning skills. So we play “Away . . . or the Garbage.”

This is a game inspired by the trash-happy father mentioned above. First, I sweep all the toys into a big pile. Then I sit on the playroom couch with a trash can next to me and I pick up their toys one by one and describe them in a game show announcer voice:

“Here we have a beautiful baby doll with pajamas and a matching hat. Where should we put him? Away . . . or the garbage?”

If they don’t move fast enough to put the toy away, I announce in a cheery tone, “Garbage!” and toss it in the trash. They get with the program pretty quickly. When they put things away, I shower them with praise.

The key is to be positive and upbeat and act like it’s just the most hilarious thing in the world that I am threatening to throw out their possessions.

And of course, it only works about half the time these days, which is why I’m glad my sister-in-law told me about the “Two-minute Turnaround,” which is where you set a timer and try to put away as many toys as possible. My kids like this because it carries the celebrity cachet of something their glamorous older cousins do.

The truth is that as hard as it is to motivate my kids to clean up, it’s even harder to motivate myself to take care of my own responsibilities. So I feel for them. I don’t expect them to have the self-control to pick up as many toys as they can play with.

But I do want them to learn, so I try to collect creative and effective cleaning tricks. I stay sane when I remember that I’m just teaching them skills—I’m the one who will be cleaning up at the end of the day. If I can only get motivated.

7 comments:

shoshana said...

tricky one. i want them to learn how to clean, but i can't just model the behavior - both b/c i don't think that works (my mother's a neat freak and i'm pretty much the opposite) and b/c i literally just can't keep stuff cleaned up. also in general i try not to impose rules that i won't consistently enforce, and there is no way i can consistently enforce the putting away of toys without going nuts. for the moment i make do with making them put away things i really don't want lost, like puzzle pieces and marker caps. we've also been doing pretty well on shoes and cups. hoping to start laying down the law on books once we get unpacked (we just moved)....

Risa said...

I think of the task as more Prometheus than Sisyphus http://www.mythweb.com/encyc/entries/prometheus.html. Each day the neatness gets pecked away by eagles (i.e. my kids) and then the neatness regenerates each night, or at least when the cleaning lady comes. I have attacked the cleaning up training in 3 ways -- having areas that will be a little more messy (the basement), getting rid of a lot of toys (so that whats left all has an uncluttered space where it "goes") and motivational techniques. These are usually 1) dangling a much desired activity to only occur after cleanup 2) the five-minute pickup, akin to your SILs technique, where I maintain the tone of a sports commentator commenting on the most exciting finish of a horserace EVER (I am always a bit drained after this one!), and the occasional threat of garbage which does not ever work for me -- but I need to try your technique! It a critical skill to teach them (to clean up), and a critical skill for us to learn (how to motivate positively) all rolled into one cluttered package! Love the post!

Deborah said...

I think that as the kids get older it definitely get easier to enlist their help - so this phase is temporary. Also, before we go somewhere fun, I usually say, "But, first we have to clean up the toys." At first they don't like it, but eventually they learn that the faster they clean up, the faster they get to leave. Or if they want a treat, I also say that first they have to clean up.

Chana@JewishMom.com said...

great ideas- I'd like to try this "announcer voice" approach and also the 2 minute turnaround. chag sameach, chaya!

Dumpster Dude said...

It is all a part of the growing process.

ds said...

In our house we play "every 5 toys, an X". X can be a piece of dried fruit, a chocolate drop, a haribo, depending on your level of corruption... We take it in turns to pick up 5 toys and put them away while the others count and cheer. Even my one year old can pretty much do it. After each 5, the picker upper gets a treat and we move on to the next person. Then at the end when we have a nice clear space, we put on music and dance...

The best part of this is that whereas usually, when tidying up, they'll get away with as little as they can, leaving toys stuffed under the sofa and behind the door, here they know that if they can find five more objects in the wrong place and put them in the right place, they get another treat - so the room gets a really good clear-up :)

Oh, and it has to go WHERE IT GOES, so if your fifth object is a sock, it has to go all the way upstairs in the laundry basket, not thrown halfway up the stairs. And if it's a sippy cup, it has to go in the sink, not chucked over the kitchen gate. You get he picture. It also seems to be teaching them the concept of things having places. I just hope it lasts a while...

Chaya said...

Keep the strategies coming, people. I'm going to compile and post a follow-up.

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