![\"Trash](\"https:\/\/www.beyondmommying.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/02\/Trash-Bags.png\")
<\/p>\nClean up at our house (as in many others) is not always an easy thing.\u00a0 Getting my girls to cooperatively clean up has always been a struggle.\u00a0\u00a0 It\u2019s easy to fall into the habit of cleaning up after your kids when they are babies and often we miss the time when it would be easiest to get children to start helping as the older they get, the less cooperative they are.\u00a0 I made this mistake with both of my girls.\u00a0 By the time I realized they were old enough to clean up their own toys I had missed the window of opportunity for easily teaching them how to and it has been a struggle ever since.<\/p>\n
Here\u2019s how a typical clean up in our house goes:<\/p>\n
Me: Honeybun, Sugarplum, our playroom is a mess.\u00a0 I think we need to clean it up today.<\/p>\n
Honeybun: I don\u2019t want to<\/p>\n
Me: well, we can\u2019t do anything else until it\u2019s clean.<\/p>\n
Honeybun: No!<\/p>\n
Me: Sugarplum, can you please come put the baby doll stuff away<\/p>\n
Sugarplum: (wanders around ignoring my request)<\/p>\n
Me: \u00a0Honeybun, you pick a CD and we\u2019ll see if you can get all the toys put away in 5 songs then we can go outside and ride bikes.<\/p>\n
Honeybun:\u00a0 ok (picks CD)<\/p>\n
Me: (put in CD) Okay, you\u2019ve got 5 songs.\u00a0 What are you going to do first?<\/p>\n
Honeybun:\u00a0 It\u2019s too much, I CAN\u2019T DO IT!<\/p>\n
Me:\u00a0 I\u2019ll do the books.\u00a0 Sugarplum, can you please put the baby doll stuff away<\/p>\n
(everyone cleans up for approx. 30 seconds)<\/p>\n
Me: \u00a0Honeybun\u00a0, what are you cleaning up?\u00a0 Sugarplum, get that baby doll thing<\/p>\n
Honeybun:\u00a0 Mommy, it\u2019s not MY job!\u00a0 It\u2019s too much, I can\u2019t do it!<\/p>\n
Me: \u00a0Honeybun\u00a0, if we all work together it won\u2019t be so much work and we\u2019ll be done quick quick!<\/p>\n
Honeybun: NO! I don\u2019t want to!<\/p>\n
Cue trash bag\u2026.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
I try to stay very patient with my girls and encourage them but sometimes it just gets to be too much, no one is listening and\/or helping and I\u2019m about to lose my cool and I have found the trash bag to be a very powerful tool in this struggle.<\/p>\n
The first time I pulled out the trash bag I loaded all the toys on the floor into it while Honeybun\u00a0pouted on the couch.\u00a0 It wasn\u2019t until I tied up the bag and took it to the garage (towards the trash can) that she lost it and realized her toys were GONE, cue hysterical crying, screaming, apologizing and begging.\u00a0 The toys stayed in the garage for a few days and magically appeared back on the shelves while the girls were sleeping.<\/p>\n
The second time she cried, screamed, apologized, begged and tried to grab things while I bagged the toys.\u00a0 Again the bag stayed in the garage for a few days and then they were returned in a pile on the floor and the girls had to put them away.<\/p>\n
The third time (and each time since) I pulled the trash bag out of the cupboard and Honeybun\u00a0screamed, cried, apologized and begged and then rushed to put everything away.\u00a0 Sometimes now even just the threat of the trash bag is enough to get her little body moving.<\/p>\n
I\u2019m still working with Sugarplum in getting her to help.\u00a0 She needs a lot more direction and gets distracted much easier but is slowly learning the process.\u00a0 I\u2019m also trying to encourage them to clean up each set of toys when they are done before getting out another.\u00a0 This is standard practice in most early childhood classrooms but is something that I\u2019ve found hard to keep on top of at home as when my children are playing nicely by themselves I take advantage and get other things done so am not always there to remind them to clean up before moving on.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Clean up at our house (as in many others) is not always an easy thing.\u00a0 Getting my girls to cooperatively clean up has always been a struggle.\u00a0\u00a0 It\u2019s easy to fall into the habit of cleaning up after your kids when they are babies and often we miss the time when it would be easiest […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":10158,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13,9],"tags":[444,294,31],"class_list":["post-219","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-a-mommys-life","category-family-life","tag-clean-up","tag-organization","tag-toys"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beyondmommying.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/219","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beyondmommying.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beyondmommying.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beyondmommying.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beyondmommying.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=219"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.beyondmommying.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/219\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10159,"href":"https:\/\/www.beyondmommying.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/219\/revisions\/10159"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beyondmommying.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/10158"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beyondmommying.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=219"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beyondmommying.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=219"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beyondmommying.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=219"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}