A couple weeks ago Linus’ school put a handout in my box that was from another preschool parent. It was about having your kids clean up and I really loved the idea. I read the paper to Jeremiah and we agreed to implement it, but with one or two of our own ideas to go with it.
It has been working splendidly.
So we get to the end of the day, I’m cleaning up after dinner and the playroom is a wreck, as usual. At 7pm neither Jeremiah nor I really feel like standing there monitoring clean up so often times it doesn’t get done.
I round up Linus and Juliette and tell them, “Ok. I am setting the timer for 15 minutes. Your job is to clean the playroom and any toys left on the floor when the timer goes off will be in time-out. You can earn the toys back by doing chores tomorrow. Understand? Good. GO!”
The results were pretty amazing.
Juliette of course spent the first few minutes crying about having her toys taken away, but I think the concept sunk in after a bit and she did eventually get up and start cleaning.
They got it clean before the timer even went off.
The toys aren’t necessarily in the proper bins but for now I don’t really care. We’ll work on that later.
I am just glad to be able to walk in the playroom.
And Christian does help a little – don’t worry he hasn’t been left out since he is little. He gets caught up in Linus’ energy and usually picks up a toy or two.
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