Tidy Up Cause it’s not Safe
We’re attempting to get organized here and although I never claimed to be Martha Stewart we do have somewhat of a system. When I see company coming, my system is run around like a mad woman sweeping everything off counters and tables and throwing it into a basket.
My children have a similar system with their clothes except sometimes they miss the basket.
Most parents I’m sure know the pain of stepping on a lego block. It is seriously not safe though especially if one is dropped on the stairs. Speaking of safety and stairs, Crocs and Escalators are Dangerous Together according to the U.S. Product Safety Commission and Erinn from Parenting Children. One of my most recent injuries was a slippery sock on the stairs. I grabbed it and quickly put it into the wash line up because they’re hard to come by.
Delegate
A good way to delegate is with chore charts. You can find free charts that you can customize at Chart Jungle. They work out well and when they don’t it’s usually because I haven’t kept up with enforcing them. I tried rewarding with money but that soon became annoying. One of my daughters didn’t want to do anything unless she was paid and my son wasn’t motivated by money at all. Anyway, I think it confused the point that they should be helping regardless because they are part of the family. My husband is still catching onto that one.
Motivate
Telling them that it simply isn’t safe isn’t sufficient to motivate them either and I don’t like to bribe with food. Rewards that have been successful include movie rentals and books. They are good kids though and although they sometimes need to be ordered to do things they will often clean up without any prompting.
If you want help motivating kids to wash their hands more, see this post about Squid Soap.
Do you have an organizational system that works for you? If so, please share because mine still needs fine tuning.
November 5th, 2007 at 1:51 pm
*grin* I have the same system you have!
November 10th, 2007 at 11:26 pm
Waving at Kyla in Seattle. Yeah, I was reading about your cleaning bursts and could relate.