[ja mama]

How do I get the boys to pick up their toys? I don't have the patience to give a direct order and deal with the flat out refusal to cooperate right now. How can I get them to help me?

I am so tired of always having to put so much energy into clean up.

They play great together, they play with the toys we have. I've weeded out the toys they don't play with. But when they are done playing, and their game has no distinct finishing point for a certain toy, the floor is a land mine of misc toys and toy pieces.

 

[phathui5]

One thing that works at our house is setting a timer and all of us working together to try to beat the timer. My ds is four and he doesn't do well with cleaning up without me helping him. I think it can be overwhelming for little ones to see all these toys on the floor and not know where to start. So I do it with him (but I don't do it all!).

 

[ja mama]

Yeah, I'm just pms-y today. And usually I can wrangle the energy to do it together in an upbeat way, if not fun. But lately J doesn't really help, he just sits on the floor watching little brother and I do it all. Today A decided to say "NO, you do it" repeatedly despite my best efforts to entice him into my game. Then I just got mad and quit cleaning up, yelled at them while walking away (how's that for respecting them!) and was just reeally detached after that.

How old do they have to be before I can occasionally just telll them to do something they don't want, and have them do it, without having to explain why, talk them into it, be a cheerleader and get them all excited over our current "challenge"?

 

[shelbean91]

I either make a game- pick up x amount of toys. I usually say 10. Then 10 more, etc. Before dd could count- I got sick of it, too. I told her to put her toys away and if I had to do it, they would go in the garbage. She didn't pick up the toys, so I got a giant garbage bag and put all the toys in it and put the bag into the garage. The next time she said no, I reminded her what happened to the other toys and she picked up quickly. Once we were over the problem, I slowly started bringing in the banished toys.

 

[thoesly]

Just a quick thought, and it may not even apply since all three of my kids have special needs (they are 5, 3, and 2): "pick up your toys" would be too vague for my kids to comply with. They need more direction. If I tell my son, "put the books on the shelf," he will do it. Then we can move onto another direction. Also, we make clean-up a part of our nightly reading. After each page, my oldest picks up 2-5 toys (he chooses the number). Again though, part of the reason this works for us is the nature of my kids' needs -- my oldest has autism and the structure helps him to function.

 

[ja mama]

Thanks so much. It was actually just a pms moment. I do find specific instruction with detailed expectations helps most of the time. They just can't do it without some help from me and I was too angry to want to help.

We're over it now and the place looks fine.
Ya know, sometimes even little things can seem like monumental events when you don't have perspective.