how do you deal w/ daily kids mess?

[Alicia64]

Hi Everyone,

 

I'm at my wit's end. I just get the house picked up and somewhat clean -- and bam! it's a mess again.

 

Any tips?

 

Alicia

[Nestof3]

Have a place for everything. I'm serious. I am an organizational freak. We have Sterilite drawers in the play area -- labeled. When I say clean up, Legos go in Lego drawers, stickers in sticker drawers, Playmobil in the Playmobil containers, etc. The exception is: they don't have to clean off their play table daily. When it becomes apparent that they have not played on their table much lately because everything has fallen down (the cats are to blame for some of this), I tell them it's time to clean off their play table.

 

I will continue to teach my boys to put things away when they are done with them until they leave home. Then, it's between them and their wives!

 

When they come in from outside, I ask: "Did you put outside toys where they belong? Did you put your bike and helmet away?" I periodically check too -- follow-up is important for young ones. The inside of their play fort is lined with plastic shelving with containers -- one for sidewalk chalk, one for bubble accessories, a large one for dress-up armor, a large one for play weapons, one for ropes and such, etc.

 

Before climbing into bed, the house is neat again. I run the dishwasher, a load of clothes before I go to bed, and I vacuum while the boys get ready for bed.

 

The boys have to have all of their things put in their homes and their rooms cleaned up. Vacuuming quickly reveals anything not done.

 

Tonight, for example, in the room, Ben had to put papers away that were scattered on the floor, a pencil eraser in the school carousel, dress-up clothes in the dress-up drawer, and dirty clothes in the hamper.

 

We awake to a clean house. I can have it no other way.

[eternalknot]

No tips, just empathy!

 

Honestly, my kids started taking pride in the rooms I assigned them. They've always done chores that complimented my own (help folding laundry, washing dishes, et cetera) but once I gave them each a room to be responsible for ... wow! They were all about keeping it neat, even to the point of policing the other if the other kid left said room a bit messy.

 

My 8 year old is in charge of the bathrooms (counters, mirrors, laundry, towels) and the playroom (all toys off the ground before meals, toys in appropriate containers and shelves).

 

My 3 year old is in charge of the laundry room (shoes in order, supplies on shelf, single socks are matched or stored neatly, brooms/mop/dusters are in correct closet) and the living room (all books on shelf, toys in containers, snack leftovers cleared to kitchen).

 

Both share resonsibility for the pets and their respective areas.

 

I'm in charge of the kitchen, dining room and our bedroom. I usually have them do a quick sweep of their areas while I prepare and serve lunch and dinner (so twice a day). I sometimes take my time on the actual serving part of the meals to allow them time to finish their quick sweep.

[sagira]

Wow. Good ideas. Taking notes. I'm a very, very messy person myself. It's ten-fold hard for me to keep it.. let's say.. decent (which is NOWHERE nestof3's standards of cleanliness).

:bigear:

[Mom0012]

One thing that helps here is that everyone picks up around the house for about 15 minutes after dinner. Doing it on a daily basis like that keeps it things manageable most of the time. It is amazing what can be accomplished in 15 minutes when everyone is pitching in.

 

If my kids have made some elaborate mess that will take longer to clean up, I will have them tackle that for a couple of nights in a row.

 

Lisa

[elegantlion]

I agree about having a place for everything. Ds usually drags stuff to the living room and 8:30pm is clean up time. He takes everything to his room. Now his room is another issue and although is fairly organized it gets cleaned about once a week.

 

When he was younger we would have 15 minutes of clean up time right before school in the morning too.

[Tabrett]

Have a place for everything. I'm serious. I am an organizational freak. We have Sterilite drawers in the play area -- labeled. When I say clean up, Legos go in Lego drawers, stickers in sticker drawers, Playmobil in the Playmobil containers, etc. The exception is: they don't have to clean off their play table daily. When it becomes apparent that they have not played on their table much lately because everything has fallen down (the cats are to blame for some of this), I tell them it's time to clean off their play table.

 

I will continue to teach my boys to put things away when they are done with them until they leave home. Then, it's between them and their wives!

 

When they come in from outside, I ask: "Did you put outside toys where they belong? Did you put your bike and helmet away?" I periodically check too -- follow-up is important for young ones. The inside of their play fort is lined with plastic shelving with containers -- one for sidewalk chalk, one for bubble accessories, a large one for dress-up armor, a large one for play weapons, one for ropes and such, etc.

 

What if you have a place for everything and your almost 2 yo goes around dumping out the toy bins?:lol: I pick it up and he dumps it out. Any suggestions?

[Nestof3]

What if you have a place for everything and your almost 2 yo goes around dumping out the toy bins?:lol: I pick it up and he dumps it out. Any suggestions?

 

Honestly, at two, he cleans it back up. I think he'll learn fast that toy bins are made for just dumping. This helps in other people's houses too. My niece visited, and almost the entire time, she would grab books and things, throw them on the floor and my brother would walk behind her picking them up. We never did get to talk.

[Ria]

Hi Everyone,

 

I'm at my wit's end. I just get the house picked up and somewhat clean -- and bam! it's a mess again.

 

Any tips?

 

Alicia

 

Mine now range from 12 to 20 and I still want to scream daily when I see the messes. Arrrgggg.

 

Ria

[Remudamom]

Start training those boys. Have them clean with you. They are plenty old enouugh.

[swellmomma]

I decided to copy the idea of a lady from the sonlight forums. She allowed her kids to chose 8-10 toys each to keep and gave the rest to goodwill. I believe she also let them chose 5 outfits to keep and gave away the rest. WIth less stuff, there is less mess. I have been working on the toyroom this week. Each kids gave me their list, I did allow sets to be 1 item (such as lego, or polly pockets- I will weed out sets differently). WIth 4 kids that is still 40 items/sets but compared to what I have/had that is a huge improvement. So far since wednesday I have taken 4 green garbage bags and several large toys to the goodwill and I have only cleared out the room half way. Clothing I am taking them each down to 10 outfits, this should stop the mess of clothes tossed everywhere while they search for the perfect top etc, and drastically cut my laundry time.

 

Otherwise I do my best to put my house back together at the end of everynight and do 15 minute tidy's through out the day. In the end though I had to recognize I had too much stuff and all I was doing was shuffling it from one place to another, and the kids found it way too easy to make a mess when there was so much to get into.

 

I have also made friends with the garbage bag, I have tossed out so much stuff that the kids left laying around, after being told to tidy up. Puzzles etc have been garbaged, and since then the main living space has been maintained much better. It still gets messy, I am a messy person and struggle a lot to simply keep it at least hazard free, but by cutting back on stuff, and showing the kids I mean business it is getting better.

[catalinakel]

Daily kid's messes are cleaned up daily by my kids. period. I do them no favor by cleaning up all of their messes. They have been taught to clean up their own messes, and they are getting to the place where this is the norm.

[joannqn]

What if you have a place for everything and your almost 2 yo goes around dumping out the toy bins?:lol: I pick it up and he dumps it out. Any suggestions?

 

 

My 2 year old picks up some of it. He can put away the coloring books he dumps (they are stacked), markers/crayons/pencils, DVDs, books with help, etc. He used to dump probably 20-30 DVDs but we always made him put them back on the shelves (with mom holding the others up and out of the way so he could slide them back in the shelf). He didn't like cleaning them up so he stopped dumping them all. My 7 and 9 year olds pick up most of it though. They hate cleaning up after him but I remind them that I picked up after them when they were two to help give them perspective...we all help even if it isn't all our mess.

 

 

My 7 and 9 year olds do most of the picking up. Pretty much every day they pick up the main rooms of the house that get the messiest. They don't do it on their own accord, but when I tell them to pick up this room or that room, they do. Then I look it over and tell them what they missed. They have other chores on top of this. They have no problems taking on the job of picking up an entire room from the age of 5 on.

[dragons in the flower bed]

Daily kid's messes are cleaned up daily by my kids. period. I do them no favor by cleaning up all of their messes. They have been taught to clean up their own messes, and they are getting to the place where this is the norm.

 

We do this too, but it still takes a lot of mom-effort (at 8, 6 & 3). They're good at putting things back where they belong. (We have a place for everything.) They're not so good at handling sponges, mops and especially soap. Twice in the past month they've left the soap where the youngest can find it, and we've come in to the kitchen to find an even layer of it spread all across the floor. And sweeping -- forget it. These kids are a liability with a giant stick of any sort. It's not that they don't try to sweep without bumping anyone's head or knocking anything off a shelf. They really do try hard. And fail. Every time.

 

To the OP, what kind of mess is it? Is it a lack of neatness -- toys scattered everywhere all the time? Or is it a lack of cleanliness -- peanut butter smeared across the fridge handle and leaves inexplicably crumpled in a pile on the couch?

 

For toys, we have a daily pick-up time several times a day. It gives me just enough time to wipe things down that may have gotten sticky under the toys. Then the toys come out again, until bedtime, when we pick up again. That way I can do maintenance cleanliness work and know it will all be clean for eight hours while we sleep.

[Hannah]

Have a place for everything.

 

Before climbing into bed, the house is neat again.

 

I'm a neat freak too and this is exactly what we do.

 

My girls can pick up a completely tipped room in about 10 minutes because they don't have an excessive amount of stuff and everything has a container into which it goes or a specific place on a shelf or in the closet. Their friends are also trained to do the 10 minute cleanup before they go home!!

 

It's not so bad looking at a big mess knowing that you're not the one who's going to be picking it up in the end. When you start training them, you need to spend the time to invest in storage, sort the stuff and to find a place for everything. Then you need to go alongside your children and and walk them throug the process of putting everything in its place. Eventually they learn what to do with a "tidy up your room" instruction. Mine still need training to pick things up as they go along, though.

 

Like Dawn, we also have a play/craft table in the living room for ongoing projects, but it has to be tidied before the next thing gets done on it.

 

We're fortunate to have a housekeeper, but the house is tidy before she comes to clean and do laundry three times a week. ETA: Sticky messes and spills are cleaned up by the girls as they make them.

Edited April 19, 2009 by Hannah

[MeanestMomInMidwest]

I train my kids to keep toys in their bedrooms. I remind them when they're playing with a toy that it goes back in the bedroom when they're done playing. I shut the bedroom doors. If the bedroom doors are open, I simply turn my head and look at the opposite wall when walking past the bedroom doors. If they want to live in chaos, that's fine by me, but it must be contained to their personal spaces. When they can't find a toy, I suggest cleaning... BTW, I use this exact method when dealing with dh & his workshop/garage, except I will toss tools left in the kitchen back into the workshop.

 

From time to time my children will ask me for money, then I tell them I'll pay them $1 to clean the bedroom (this method does not work with dh's workshop/garage).

 

probably about once a week, I blast the radio, and everybody in the house does a "blitz." We jump up and down, high five and assign tasks....if anyone were to snoop on us, they'd be sure they found a house of lunatics. I find 80's music works best for this.

 

ETA: spills are cleaned by the spiller, with help from parent, as ability requires. Nobody gets in trouble for spilling (probably because I do the majority of spilling)

Edited April 19, 2009 by MeanestMomInMidwest

[AnnetteB]

Blinders :tongue_smilie:

[keptwoman]

At 5.30pm every day we tidy the house. I am not good at keeping on top of my mess during the day and neither are the children. But at 5.30 we each have an assigned room to tidy. The room is expected to be spotless, no clutter, clear surfaces, vaccumed or swept if necessary, dusted if necessary, cushions in order etc. The DC still take longer than is ideal to clean and tidy their alloted room but they are getting slowly better. Then we each do one other chore such as emptying rubbish and recycling bins or putting washing away.

 

Our home is spotless every night when DH comes home. I like it to be nice for him. Although on Friday he came home unannounced at 5.25, right before the big clean up, to a chaotic mess. I told him it was lovely to see him early but perhaps next time he could warn me LOL.

[Peela]

flylady.net

[Nestof3]

At 5.30pm every day we tidy the house. I am not good at keeping on top of my mess during the day and neither are the children. But at 5.30 we each have an assigned room to tidy. The room is expected to be spotless, no clutter, clear surfaces, vaccumed or swept if necessary, dusted if necessary, cushions in order etc. The DC still take longer than is ideal to clean and tidy their alloted room but they are getting slowly better. Then we each do one other chore such as emptying rubbish and recycling bins or putting washing away.

 

Our home is spotless every night when DH comes home. I like it to be nice for him. Although on Friday he came home unannounced at 5.25, right before the big clean up, to a chaotic mess. I told him it was lovely to see him early but perhaps next time he could warn me LOL.

 

Great description! I love your method!

 

We used to TRY to do that, but my husband never gets home at the same time, and if it rains, he comes home then. I tried getting him to call me, but it never happened. Finally, he said the house looks fine when he comes home, so I stopped trying.

[TXMomof4]

Have a place for everything. I'm serious. I am an organizational freak. We have Sterilite drawers in the play area -- labeled. When I say clean up, Legos go in Lego drawers, stickers in sticker drawers, Playmobil in the Playmobil containers, etc. The exception is: they don't have to clean off their play table daily. When it becomes apparent that they have not played on their table much lately because everything has fallen down (the cats are to blame for some of this), I tell them it's time to clean off their play table.

 

I will continue to teach my boys to put things away when they are done with them until they leave home. Then, it's between them and their wives!

 

When they come in from outside, I ask: "Did you put outside toys where they belong? Did you put your bike and helmet away?" I periodically check too -- follow-up is important for young ones. The inside of their play fort is lined with plastic shelving with containers -- one for sidewalk chalk, one for bubble accessories, a large one for dress-up armor, a large one for play weapons, one for ropes and such, etc.

 

Before climbing into bed, the house is neat again. I run the dishwasher, a load of clothes before I go to bed, and I vacuum while the boys get ready for bed.

 

The boys have to have all of their things put in their homes and their rooms cleaned up. Vacuuming quickly reveals anything not done.

 

Tonight, for example, in the room, Ben had to put papers away that were scattered on the floor, a pencil eraser in the school carousel, dress-up clothes in the dress-up drawer, and dirty clothes in the hamper.

 

We awake to a clean house. I can have it no other way.

 

 

You are amazing. Can I come live with you?

[sagira]

I like the idea of cleaning for 15 minutes daily. I'm going to start that again. Dh, the kids and I all do it. Most of the time I only get the dishwasher done, but at least it gets done. It's been three days since dishes were clean in the dishwasher.

[WTMindy]

At 5.30pm every day we tidy the house. I am not good at keeping on top of my mess during the day and neither are the children. But at 5.30 we each have an assigned room to tidy. The room is expected to be spotless, no clutter, clear surfaces, vaccumed or swept if necessary, dusted if necessary, cushions in order etc. The DC still take longer than is ideal to clean and tidy their alloted room but they are getting slowly better. Then we each do one other chore such as emptying rubbish and recycling bins or putting washing away.

 

Our home is spotless every night when DH comes home. I like it to be nice for him. Although on Friday he came home unannounced at 5.25, right before the big clean up, to a chaotic mess. I told him it was lovely to see him early but perhaps next time he could warn me LOL.

 

LOL! We do a similar thing and I know that feeling when dh arrives early! :-) I wouldn't say our home is spotless when he gets home, but it definitely all picked up. I think one side-benefit to this is the message it sends to the kids that we are excited about Daddy getting home and we want to do something nice for him since he has worked hard all day.

[Woodland_Mom]

We have a 15 minute pick-up, too! After dinner, I set the timer and we all clean top speed for 15 minutes. I always pick what I'd like everyone to do. We get so much done and we have fun doing it. My husband usually shouts out drill-seargent type comments for a laugh. When the timer buzzes, we stop in our tracks to take a look around. We're always amazed at all that we acomplish in such a short time.

 

I like the idea of giving the kids the responsibility over a particular room/rooms of the house. Maybe I'll try that!

[Heather in Neverland]

Have a place for everything. I'm serious. I am an organizational freak. We have Sterilite drawers in the play area -- labeled. When I say clean up, Legos go in Lego drawers, stickers in sticker drawers, Playmobil in the Playmobil containers, etc. The exception is: they don't have to clean off their play table daily. When it becomes apparent that they have not played on their table much lately because everything has fallen down (the cats are to blame for some of this), I tell them it's time to clean off their play table.

 

I will continue to teach my boys to put things away when they are done with them until they leave home. Then, it's between them and their wives!

 

When they come in from outside, I ask: "Did you put outside toys where they belong? Did you put your bike and helmet away?" I periodically check too -- follow-up is important for young ones. The inside of their play fort is lined with plastic shelving with containers -- one for sidewalk chalk, one for bubble accessories, a large one for dress-up armor, a large one for play weapons, one for ropes and such, etc.

 

Before climbing into bed, the house is neat again. I run the dishwasher, a load of clothes before I go to bed, and I vacuum while the boys get ready for bed.

 

The boys have to have all of their things put in their homes and their rooms cleaned up. Vacuuming quickly reveals anything not done.

 

Tonight, for example, in the room, Ben had to put papers away that were scattered on the floor, a pencil eraser in the school carousel, dress-up clothes in the dress-up drawer, and dirty clothes in the hamper.

 

We awake to a clean house. I can have it no other way.

 

:iagree:

 

That's how it is in our house too. Also, my boys are not allowed to get out another game/toy/activity until they put away the one they are no longer using. If they forget they get one warning that sounds like this: "If you don't put _____ away within the next 30 seconds I am throwing it away." I only had to follow through once before they knew I was serious. :D