A couple weeks ago I stopped telling the boys to pick up the laundry in their room. It's not supposed to be in there and I got tired of asking for it. If they run out of clean clothes, that's their problem and they will learn eventually. I say that it shouldn't be in there because they really shouldn't be changing clothes in there unless it's to take off pajamas. They should be taking off dirty clothes before a bath where there is a hamper right outside the door. If they should need to change during the day they have to walk by the laundry room to leave the house so again, no excuse because there's a basket in there for dirty laundry as well. I also do not fold and put away their clean laundry. I wash it and put it all in a basket for them to sort and put away. Do they fold it? No, but if it were folded they would certainly un-fold it while they were digging through the drawer like a rat so I don't care, it's in the drawer and I'm good. Some will say that my theory on laundry is bad because they are only
children, but it is a very simple thing that I ask for them to put that
where it goes and I feel that they should be able to comprehend this.
Obviously they don't, but I'd like to believe that one day the light
will come on regarding this. I did laundry yesterday and today I told them that I hadn't been asking for their laundry for two weeks and that all of that laundry in the floor would now be dirty for another week. I got a shocked look since those were some of their favorite things to wear that they will now have to wait a week for. I had fun with that.
On Monday I started a new thing to get them to clean their room since I am also tired of telling them to do that and if they want to live in filth and get hurt stepping on Legos, that's their problem. I do sometimes make them clean it all up at once so that I can vacuum and such, but in general I just let it roll. My room was a disaster as a kid and now I hate messes. I think it's because I saw that I could find things in the rest of the house which my mother kept immaculate despite what she says, and that I could find nothing in my sty of a room. I'm not sure that was a lesson that she intended to teach, but my sister and I both got it. Eventually she would go in and clean up our messes and I have to say that I really really fight the urge to do the same. It drives me nuts and sometimes I have to do what she did and just close the door and walk away. So what is this new thing that I am trying that is working? Each morning before school and in the evening around dinner, I tell them each to pick up three things and put it away. If they do Legos or something small, one handful= one thing. It's going to take days for it to get cleaned up, but they don't feel threatened or overwhelmed because it's only three things. I laugh to myself because they think they are winning by only having to pick up three things. They don't see the snowball effect that I see, and they also don't realize that I'm having them do it a couple times a day.
I feel like a better parent for these small victories because I'm not nagging them or yelling at them. I have a huge issue with doing that, so anything that helps me not do that is a win in my book. It's saving me from doing it myself, hopefully teaching them to do it themselves, and no one yells or gets yelled at. WOOT! ~Kellie~
