Ok. I am looking for advice. I will be the first to admit that I hate cleaning and will do almost anything to get out of it. I had professional cleaners coming in every other week for awhile but decided I just cannot afford it right now. Besides hating to clean, it is difficult to find the time with two young children and working full-time.
I am looking for ideas on how to get Jacob to help with just the picking up. Especially his toys. It seems like he has to have at least two timeouts and takes at least 20 minutes just to pick up 5 things. Meanwhile, other toys are being taken out while I try to get him to pick up. I have tried positive reinforcement telling him we will go to the park or somewhere fun after we pick up. He just says he doesn't want to go. He takes after his mom and would rather sit in his room than
clean-up. I really don't have any other ideas. I realize he is like me in that he just doesn't like to clean but I do have my limits. The house needs to be cleaned at least once a week and I really think he should be helping.
2 comments:
A couple things work for us (only temporarily, though - I'm always having to change it up).
Have a competition. See who can pick up 3 things the fastest or who can put 2 blue things in the toy box first.
Do it in small doses. Pick up 3 pieces of trash (or 4 things with wheels) - not the whole room - at a time. Usually I do this during commercial breaks if they are watching TV.
Buy him his own cleaning supplies. Go to the store together and pick out the swiffer broom. The pole is screwed together and you can leave out one of the pieces to make it the right height for him. Also, cleaning actually gets done with the Swiffer broom (versus a regular broom).
Keep in mind, my house is still messy, but a little bit less messy.
I am not a fan of Barney but there is one song that all my nephews have been suckers for in cleaning up their toys. "Clean up, Clean up, everybody clean up". It's about as annoying as It's a small world when it gets in the brain... so maybe you can make up a song on your own ??
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