I just survived the annual summer visit from my in-laws. I'm fortunate; I truly adore them. But it's stressful nonetheless. I stayed up late to scrub the house only to have the kids promptly destroy it within an hour once they started playing. The living room floor quickly became Playmobil land, and the kitchen table was covered in zoomorphs.
Which brings me to this week's topic: cleaning up the toys. It can be a daily battle in our house. I try to allow enough mess-making for the kids to be truly creative in their play, while keeping enough rules in place so the house doesn't become a giant toy pit. But it's a struggle. And as embarrassed as I am to admit this fact publicly, I have threatened to throw toys in the garbage after stepping on a castle figure in bare feet.
Such threats often just get me pleading sobs, rather than the cooperation that I'm really after, though. Also, let's face it. If I throw away their toys or give them away to charity, I'm just going to be out at some point buying replacements. Not a good plan. No, I just want to keep the toys under control so I can vacuum without first spending two hours putting everything away. I want the kids to happily put their toys away without a single request from me. Sigh. A mom can dream, right?
I've tried putting toys in boxes and rotating every few months which boxes are available for play. This failed for us because the kids would always want (or in their words, need) one specific item from a box that wasn't due back out for another month. I never knew what the right answer was in these situations. If I said no, often the play stopped and many tears were shed. If I said yes, then they wanted another box and another box until all boxes were down. Even when the rotation method "worked," it didn't work. As soon as the boxes that had been stored for a bit were put back in the play room, they were suddenly greeted as "new" toys that all had to be dumped at once like on Christmas morning. I really wanted to scream.
We have finally figured out some better storage options that work for us. For instance, I bought plastic see-through containers with snapping lids. The kids can see what goes in each bin. So when I ask them to pick up their toys, they know where they go. The bins also stack neatly inside their closets and on the playroom shelves, so space is conserved.
But that is only part of the solution in taming the toy beast, as any parent knows. We still face the difficulty of getting the kids to put toys in the buckets. I won't bore you with all the bad things I've tried to get my kids to pitch in; I'll just share one trick that has worked really well for us, and beg for others to chime in with techniques that work for them.
Okay, so here is mine. I decided I had to try to make cleaning up fun. So I got the kids these robot grabber hands. Somehow, it's more fun to pick up toys with these than with your bare hands. I lined up the bins for the toys that were left out, I handed each kid a hand, and we raced to see who filled up his or her bin first. It really worked, and it continues to work on the days that chores just seem too daunting to my little ones. I think it helps them to know one specific task at a time (e.g. pick up all the Groovy girls and put them in this bin), instead of just telling them to clean up their toys, as well. We use our grabber hands to pick up dirty laundry, clean sticks out of the yard, put stuffed animals in the top bunk, just about anything we can think of. It's been a great addition to chore time!
I know there are other fun, creative ways to help get kids to clean up around the house. I'd love to hear yours! In fact, I will give the 5 best tips submitted to me between now and next Sunday (Aug. 15, 2009) a $5.00 gift certificate to use at one of our stores! Not a coupon, no minimum purchase required, just a straight $5.00 gift certificate! You could use it to get your very own robot grabber hand if you wanted! Simply post it, and I'll announce next week the winners out of all the comments.
So let's hear your ideas!
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