Teaching a toddler to clean up messes?

[melissel]

I know that seems like a really dumb thing, because for pete's sake, she's 22 months old. But all the advice I've ever gotten, from AP/GD folks to totally mainstream folks, says you should teach them to clean up their messes while they're still little, because it's infinitely harder when they're older. I'm working hard with my almost 5 y.o. to clean up her messes more often, and she's coming around. However, the toddler is the mega-mess-maker, and there have been sooooo many times when there's a combined mess to clean up, yet the toddler made 75% of it, and I feel crummy having my big one forever helping clean up after the little one.

I've tried to lead the little one in a game for cleaning up, singing the clean-up song, telling her that she can't take out something else until the first thing is cleaned up...nothing works. She either screams NO! and runs away, or, in the latter case, simply breaks down weeping piteously. Then she'll wander off and come back for the same new game/toy five minutes later, when I'll tell her again she can't have it until we pick up the first thing, and she breaks down, weeping piteously...and so on. I always start the clean-up with her, and all I really want is for her to put one thing away, to get the point, but it doesn't seem to be working.

I know it's ridiculous to force the issue with a toddler, but what do I do? Do I never get out the other toy for her, thereby making her hysterical all day long? Do I make the decree, and then give in by giving her the toy, which I think sets a bad precedent, especially for someone about to enter her terrible twos? Honestly, I wouldn't care so much if she wasn't such a champion mess maker--her all-time favorite occupation is to empty things. Anything she can find. All day long.

Any suggestions are greatly appreciated.

[WuWei]

We have never treated any messes as "my mess", "your mess". We consider it a problem to be solved and we work together. For instance, dh might drop the chicken from the grill while coming into the house. I don't stand there and say "You spilled it. You need to clean it up." I'll say, 'OH! Here, I'll go wash off the chicken and here is some paper towel. Ds would you get a wash cloth? And we'll wet it and wipe it up.'

Same thing if ds spills juice in his room. I'll just say, 'Oops, here is a napkin. Try to sop that up and I'll get a wash cloth to try to wash out the stain.' When I spill something in the kitchen, ds, as quickly as I, will rush to grab a wash cloth and start wiping it up. He has helped clean up messes freely and gladly since he was about 18 months old when he thought it was "fun".

We just never said that cleaning up wasn't "fun". And we all just treat messes as something that needs to be wiped up. There is no "punishment" of *you clean up* because *you made the mess*. Ds has never said "I didn't do it". There is no reason to deny accountability as there is no "getting in trouble" for making a mess. He yells "I spilled juice!" or "I made a mess!" I am glad that he informs me so that we can clean it up as soon as possible. I thank him for telling me and we just clean it up. We all make messes; it is a neutral act that needs a solution, imo. We just clean them up together. I would rather model that we all make mistakes and that we help each other.

Same thing with toys, we just work together to put things away. We have a play area; and we freely and creatively play with things that are not intended to "go together". So, putting something up before getting something new out has never been an issue. I just help keep things orderly, as *I* wish them to be, and ds helps me along when he wants.


HTH, Pat

[bdavis337]

I disagree, to a point. My 6 and 2 year old share a bedroom, and consequently toy space and toy storage. If my 2 year old spends the morning destroying the bedroom while his brother is at daycamp, I don't expect the older brother to help us clean up later that afternoon. And if my oldest leaves his Legos in a hot mess on the living room floor, I will only help to the extent that it gets the little bitty pieces out from under the couch so they don't get vaccuumed up. It's his toy, he made the mess, he cleans it up.

As for the toddler, I point out specifically what I would like "Mark, please put the tractor in the toybox. Thanks! Ok, now let's put away the books, can you bring me the book?" He loses interest very quickly, so I end up doing most of it, but I involve him as much as possible. I also make a big deal of saying "oooh, we're doing coloring, so I'm going to put the crayons away. After I do that, we can go outside!". There's no way a toddler is going to clean up happily unless we turn it into a game!

[violet]

bdavis337 hit on a key point - being very concrete and specific. "clean up" is rather vague and can be overwhelming to a toddler. My 5 yr old still struggles with seeing the individual pieces of the mess- she sees the playroom is out of order, but she's still not sure what to do first, second, etc. With my toddler I'm at that level that bdavis337 described: put this block in this box here. can you put these two blocks in at the same time? Can you find a blue block to put in . . . etc. The toddler portion of clean up is maybe 5% of the overall job and I get the other 95% done while doing the ongoing prompting. I keep it local, with me right by him, to keep him from getting overwhelmed by the whole mess. My hope is that will build the skill of seeing the parts of the mess and going through it. I have a dear preschool teacher friend and to see her break down the tasks into concrete instructions is a sight to behold. I hear her and think - man, I need to explain more and assume less.

[bdavis337]

Yep! Even my 6 year old needs direction when things are big and overwhelming. I'll say "ok, you made this ENTIRE mess by yourself, so I'll sit here and keep you company but it's your responsibility to put it away. What will you start with? Books?......Ok, books are done, what's next? Action figures?............Ok, looks like you can handle it from here, let me know when you're done and we can XYZ."

[melissel]

Thanks everyone. That's the thing--I do do that. For example, today the Boggle game ended up all over the dining room floor. Easy enough to clean up--the toddler wanted to go take out pieces to a different game, and I said, "Sure, we can play that! But first we have to get all these things put away. Come on and help me! We'll do the clean up song..." and I got down on my hands and knees and started. She picked up one little box and I said, "OK, here you go, put some of these cubes in the box," and attempted to hand her some, while I put the cards away. She dropped it all on the floor, said no, and walked away, angry. I told her that I wanted to play the other game, but we had to get the first put away before we could. Insta-meltdown

Pat, I do agree that we all pitch in to clean up--before my DD1 was even old enough to complain about it, I started explaining to her that we all work together, and that when DD2 is old enough to understand, she'll be doing her part too. But there's only so long that will cut it--the older one definitely notices that the younger one never cleans ANYTHING up, and in fact, in many cases, is making a mess in the older one's room while they're in there playing. And mainly, I'm concerned about building skills for the future. I'm worried about setting the precedent that the little one can make any mess she wants and then cry and scream to get out of cleaning up, while the compliant older one will just "do her part" without complaint. I know the time hasn't really come for that yet, but I guess I'm sort of asking, when DOES the time come to start addressing it? Is it now? If so, how?

Thanks for the thoughts so far! If anyone has more to add, please do, I could use as much insight as I can get :