Clean their bedrooms the mean mom way: do it for them
Here's yet another area where I don't usually practice what I preach but when I do, things happen. Note to self: follow my own advice and do what I'm about to tell others to try.
PROBLEM: BEDROOMS
Our kids' rooms are usually a mess. Big mess. B.I.G. Like, can-hardly-make-a-path-to-the-bed on a bad day. Because the rooms are small and crowded, a small mess looks big and a big one...well, you get the point, right? And they can clean up the whole room, then have a whole new mess within a couple of hours. But I've beaten this dead horse enough. Problem: messy rooms. Let's move on toward a solution.
There are several ways to address the mess. Hey, it rhymes. Let's say it again just for fun because that's the only fun thing about getting kids to clean their bedrooms: Address the mess. It's a mess address. If the girls' clothes are all over the floor, it's a dress mess, or a mess of dresses, or messy dresses. ess, ess, ess. Oops. Sorry. Hello. Ahem. Cleaning bedrooms.
Generally, I just say, "Go clean your room...nope, not done yet...still a mess...try again...hey, you're back? Listen: don't come out til it's done, OK?"
This works, but not well. It's slow, frustrating, and instead of a clean room I usually just get a rearranged mess. I hope I'm not alone here.
SOLUTION: THE BOX
So here's what I like to do every now and then. Be forewarned, it's a lot more work for mom, but it's worth the results.
I grab a trash bag or two, and a box. I may or may not issue a warning that I will do the cleaning this time. Then I sort as I clean.
If it's important (like their only pair of shoes) I put it away for them - or I put it in the You Put This Away Pile. If it's not important, it goes away, never to return: trash or Goodwill. So far, so good. But here's my favorite part: If I think it might be precious to them but it's not important to me, it goes into a box. The Box.
The Box gets inventoried if I'm being organized (hah! I made a joke! Are you laughing?), and it gets put away for a while. Then when one of the children remembers to ask where her favorite ____ has been because she hasn't seen it for weeks, I smile. "Remember when I cleaned your room? It's in The Box. Would you like it back?"
When you hold The Box, the ransom is up to you. You can make them do a chore to get an item back, or charge cold hard cash. Consider it your pay for cleaning the bedroom. You can put a limit on how many items they get back, or how often. But the key is to make them request the item specifically. Don't bend on this one. They don't get to look in the box and see what's hidden away. If they don't miss their old ____, it doesn't come back to contribute to future messes.
Can you see how this works?
- The room stays cleaner, longer, every time you do this because there is less unwanted junk to clutter the room.
- The room stays cleaner, longer, every time you do this because your kids learn to put away anything they care about lest it become a hostage of The Box.
Now, just do it. And tell me to do it, too, because I need the nudge. And because their bedrooms...well...you know...
Want more ideas? Got ideas of your own? Visit Help For Growing Families every Tuesday at Ship Full O' Pirates.
Related posts:
- Big family in a small house, part 1: bedrooms
- 4 Moms Open House linky: Bedrooms, part 2
- Real Life is back
- the bedroom bonanza
- Works for Me Wednesday: quick pick-ups
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Filed under: methods
SHOCK & AWE!!!!
What a plan!
You are SOOO not alone on the cleaning bit. Its a constant problem with my guys. The unfortunate part is that one is old enough to get it. The other two are not quite there yet. (you know … toddlers) Ive seen this theory before tho. I would love an update if you actually try this and it works. My oldest is pretty sly and tries to make this kind of stuff backfire on me. It was bad enough one time that I told him that I was going to get rid of every toy he owned. You know what he told me? “OK Mom.” He was even ready to help me put it in bags for the thrift store. So much fun.
So how do we get OUR room clean?!?!
Awesome!
I saw this idea on another blog, and I plan on implementing it if I ever need to.
I will take a picture (or pictures) of the mess. Then, I will either email the picture to the grandparents and/or post it on my blog and tell my kid(s) what I’ve done, giving them the opportunity to make a wonderful “after” picture to e-mail/post.
I don’t know if this embarrassment tactic is good or just plain mean, but for now I like the idea
Sounds like a good plan, pretty similar to what we all do with my niece and nephew’s toys… if they are told to pick it up, and it’s still there after they went to do whatever they were told to do after cleaning up, it goes in the box. At my house, they don’t get it back until they work for it, at their house they don’t get it back until the end of the month.
My parents always just took the trash bag and tossed *everything* if we failed to clean sufficiently. I think it generally got given to friends/charity…
I do this too! Glad I am not the only mean mom with the “box” or a garbage bag.
Great idea!
Now, get to work!
Great idea– heard of it once before, but this Mom put everything in “the box” and charged ransom. She told me that one Sunday her son went to church with no shoes on because he didn’t have money to “rescue” his shoes. She went on to say that he never left his church shoes in the floor again.
I think I’ll be putting this one to the test.
THANKS!!
Thank you for this post. It is always something that comes around with clarity shortly after Christmas Day. Have you noticed? The Purging of the House has to happen, especially if you are not the I’ve-Got-Everything-Under-Control Mom who bi-weekly goes through every closet and drawer to eliminate unwanted clutter. My favorite word for this month is “simplify.” Simple lets you see the beauty that is really there (in a room, or in a person-because you’ve got TIME to observe it), it is peaceful, functional, disciplined, and it is freedom. Not to be dramatic or anything- but I think this is a little piece of wisdom I shall pass on to my children so they learn it before THEY ARE 35.
Just when I think you might be from outer space and your family nearing perfection you go and shatter my all my preconceived perceptions. BAM! And just like that you’re normal again. Thank goodness!
Love all the things I know about you,
Sheila
One more thing: What does a charge do, and how does it work?
Oh, this is so good!!
And for some reason, some how, I ended up with really neat, organized little boys. Both of them – even the almost 2yo!
But my girls (5 & 3) – IMPOSSIBLE!!! That is *so* me saying “clean your room”, “nope, not done yet”, “uh-uh, still not clean”, etc.etc.etc….. And they act as though it is *SOOOOOOO* much – they can’t *possibly* be expected to clean up (even though we are really consistant, they still act as though the “whining” will somehow change our minds…come on!).
Thanks for this idea ~ I am definitely going to try this one!
~Lori
Kim, this is beyond a shadow of doubt my favorite post yet, I LOVE it!!! You are brilliant my friend:-)
Ooh… I like this one!
Brilliant.
I can’t remember what color my boys’ carpet is.
I hereby proclaim Wednesday to be Official Box Day at my house.
Many thanks.
I’m not a mom yet, but I LOVE this idea! I’m marking this in my “someday” file to pull out when the time comes. Keep ‘em coming!!!
My mom TOTALLY used to do this to us only she never did the box part. I wish she had. I still miss a few things that she got rid of. This really is a great idea for moms!
Maybe I should try it out on my younger brother who rents from my husband and I. Hmmm. maybe not.
I am sure you probably did this, but this is my comment. Do your girls understand what you are asking of them? I always try and work with the girls till I am sure that when I asked them to clean there room or whatever they know what I am asking for. I think it is so easy for a mother with many children to take for granted that they know what I am asking of them. I like things done a certain way but if they don’t know that, we are pulling in two different directions.
you are soooo not alone on the “all afternoon, clean up your room mellow drama” – ugh. Makes me nuts. I need to be more consistent on the room purge – and the box, yep, that takes consistency too….let’s get busy! Karen
Mary Weaver,
Yes, they get it. I don’t require spotless cleaning – just the absence of trash, laundry and toys on the floor and under the bed. And these are big girls, who know how to do things like CLEAN THE WHOLE HOUSE EXCEPT THEIR OWN BEDROOMS.
ahem…deep breath…
brilliant!
YOU ARE MY HERO!!!
We have 4 girls, ages 13, 12, 10, and 5, in one room 12×12. Continual mess!!!
Can’t wait to try it out!!
Thanks!!!
My mom & dad did something like this, only without the box. End result: my brothers (I have 7) would play with MY things after their own were confiscated/thrown out. Nothing I could do and then my things were lost as well, as I could not be there every minute to hide, protect or clean up my borrowed toys and complaining about the situation (or refusing to share) was met with violent punishment. I hated those spontaneous clean-up times.
Beth,
Our rooms are like that too – roughly the same size with 4 children in each. One room has girls aged 15, 10, 7 and the 2yo boy; the other room is all girls, 13, 12, 7, and 4.
Samara,
Our kids each have a “treasure box” to keep their own personal possessions. Nobody is allowed to get into another’s treasure box, so personal possessions are safe there.
Your situation sounds like it had to be tremendously frustrating, but that’s not what is happening our house. My neater children look forward to these cleanups because they usually keep their things put away and hate the mess as much as I do.
I really love the part where you keep the things you think might be important to them!! My parents cleaned our room once or twice…it was traumatizing and we didn’t get anything back. Not once. The problem was also that those who were actually neat would sometimes have their things taken…
My family does treasure boxes too – or at least, they did for the older girls. I actually have two, plus two large boxes filled with things I don’t want to get rid of, like books…since I’m at the stage of my life called Moving Constantly, Thanks College, they sit out in the garage at home. My parents are planning on getting a storage unit for things like that though; it’s apparently not too expensive..and 10 (11 some weekends) people in a 3 bedroom 1 office roughly 1200 square feet house is a wee bit cramped, especially when half of them are over the age of 13.
just wanted to say hi. you’re an awesome mom… whenever i get overwhelmed with my little tribe, i just come read your blog (and others who have more children than me), and i feel more inspired and encouraged. thanks. God bless!
LOL You go girl!
I have a friend who packed EVERYTHING into bags and put them up and her kids had to do extra work to get a couple items at a time back…and sometimes the items they got back were trash that was picked up with their things. lol
A good friend of ours introduced us to this several years ago and it has worked beautifully. We call it the Redemption Box. The kids hate to see me coming but, I figure if they want their stuff, they will pick it up!
You sneaky little snake!!! I love it!!!!
I so did the same thing a few weeks ago. We have 3 girls in one room and 3 boys in another. The girls will still get the job done eventually, but the boys were just not ever getting finished. They end up playing every time. So, I went in and “cleaned their room for them after countless warnings. It worked great. The room still gets messy, but it also gets clean now. I can actually vacuum the carpet. I should have done that looong ago.
I love this. We’ve done similar things in the past, but never required them to ASK for a specific item, and I love that piece. Our daily routine consists of cleaning their rooms each morning. They can make it drag out ALL DAY. Since my husband doesn’t go to work until after lunch, he has kindly volunteered to swoop through the rooms when the kids and I head out to our little barn for school each morning. When we come back to the house, their rooms will be “magically” clean! We also discussed a 2-box system, we’ll fill one box one month, the next box the next month, and when we get to month 3, we’ll need to use box 1 again, so anything left in it goes to goodwill! It sets up a natural timeline restriction for earning “important” things back… because we could (and have) kept boxes of confiscated toys around WAY too long, only to have to be sorted AGAIN when we clean the garage!
I have 4 children and another due very soon. The grand total will be 3 girls and 2 boys after the baby is born. Right now, the eldest girl (16) and my son (13) share a room, and the two younger girls (ages 7 and 4) share a room. I have done something similar to this, only I have never used the redemption box. Perhaps I’ll try that, with the variation one of the commenters made about the 3 month time limit. My problem is toys in the younger children’s room and clothes in the teens’ room (oh and WET TOWELS ON THE FLOOR…ahem.) My younger girls sometimes will get overly excited about clothing options and will leave stuff on the floor, but mostly it’s toys and I inevitably step on…so anyway, thanks for the great idea. I may post about this soon, when I’m actually allowed to do housework (I’m on limited activity due to high risk pregnancy) but I certainly look forward to it. God bless!