how do you get them to pick up toys?!!?

[taramoon13]

i've tried the obvious-helping ds (3) pick up, asking nicely about 400 times and sometimes ds just straight up refuses to pick up toys at all. i then resort to saying "well, we're not going outside if these aren't picked up", but i'm punishing myself too because i want to go outside!!!!! i feel it's important that he learns to pick up his stuff. we don't go through this everyday, sometimes he's helpful, sometimes the toys aren't a mess because we're out all day. i know different things works for different kids. just wondering if anyone found a magic solution that worked for them.

[~Charlie's~Angel~]

For me, its the natural of order of things. We cant leave for the park until we pick up our toys. We cant watch the movie until we pick up our toys. And then we sing the clean up song while we do it. We just throw everything into a giant bin anyway, so its pretty easy. Its just how we do it in my house, and it works.

[taramoon13]

unfortunately that doesn't work here. ds doesn't seem phased that we're not going to do this or that, he just quietly goes on playing

[Llyra]

Mine (they're 6, 3, and 3) mostly do it willingly. We have scheduled clean up times in our day-- right after lunch, and right after dinner. Between times, I'll sometimes ask for a particular thing to be cleaned up, if it's a real problem for me, but I mostly wait until the cleanup times. Making a routine out of it really does seem to help-- the more consistent you can be, the better.

But a few times, I've gotten to a point with one child or another where I've said: "either you pick them up, or I will. and if I pick them up, I'm putting them away in the top of my closet until Sunday." Then I've gone ahead and followed through.

It's not the most non-controversial strategy. But it works.

[redvlagrl]

DD (2) will pick them up if I tell her that either she helps me or they get taken away. If I start and she isn't helping I will ask "shall I take them away?". Gets her moving every time

[gbailey]

Have you tried a song? When DD (2.5) went to Little Gym when she was about 1.5 years old there was a song about putting the items away,"it's time to put the shakersaway, shakers away, shakers away. it's time to put the shakers away at the little gym." We started doing the song at home but instead we say it's time to put the toys away at the bailey house". Now she does it without the song and I remind her sometimes, "we have to put the crayons away before we have our snack, we have to put our books back where we got them from."

Try demonstrating to him what you want him to do and maybe that will help.

[crunchy_mommy]

We usually put things away when we're done with them, before we move on to the next toy or activity. It seems that if I let him take out 20 toys, he gets too overwhelmed to put them all back, so I try to remind him to put each thing away before it gets to that point, otherwise I give him very specific tasks ("OK let's put the blocks back first") and pick up alongside him & he does well with that.