Finally Beating the Messy Bedroom Monsters

In a previous post, I mentioned my struggle to get the girls to keep clean rooms, and I wanted to update on how we finally got them to understand what we expect.

First, we went to the store and bought one of those 5 drawer plastic containers. I realized that one reason that M had trouble keeping her room clean is that she did not feel there was a clear designation for everything. There was a big plastic tub for holding stuffed animals and dolls, and there were bookshelves for books and toys. And the drawer in her nightstand held her my little ponies, but there was new stuff that had no designated place.

Second, I let her "own" the responsibility. When we brought it home, I let her decide how to organize her toys. I said, "OK, what would you like to put into this drawer?" And she said, "My blocks." So we picked up all the blocks. Though she did not know it, this doubled as a math lesson: classification.

Oh, I was so pleased. I had not seen her room look so good in weeks! I finally conquered the mess!

Boy, was I angry when I found that every toy had been dumped onto the floor an hour later!

So after cleaning everything up AGAIN, I sat down with M and showed her how to play without making a mess. I said, "Let us pretend that we want to play with ponies." So I opened the pony drawer and said, "Now we don't need every pony. Let's just find the ones we want the most." So we picked out about five ponies. Then I said, "What do you want to do with your ponies? Do you want to build a stable for them or do you want a tea party?" So the ponies had a tea party, and when the tea party was done, we put the tea set away and built a stable. When that was done, we put both the ponies and the stable away.

I did the same thing with R, and both girls finally got the whole concept of cleaning as you go. For three or four weeks, the rooms stayed clean. I followed this up with a story I made up:

There were three little pigs. One little pig was so buys cleaning that she never had time for anything. She never got to play with toys because she was so afraid that the toys would make a mess, and she never got to make special crafts because she was concerned that the glue would get on the table.

The second little pig would start a project and never finish it. She would get out the paints, glue, scissors, and paper and never put them away when she was done. She would cook dinner and never clean up afterwards. Her table was full of old projects, and her kitchen full of dirty dishes. She had no room to do anything fun.

The third little pig loved to play and create new things, but she would always clean as she went. As soon as she finished her project, she put away her markers, crayons, paper and scissors, so she always knew where everything was and she had plenty of space to start something new.

One day, there was a art contest in the newspaper, and all three little pigs decided to enter the contest. The first little pig did not even start because she decided it was too messy, but the second little pig jumped in right away. However, it took her a week to find her scissors and when she did, she realized that her glue bottle had been left open and all the glue was dried out. Her markers were missing caps, and when she finally got all the supplies ready, there was no room at her messy table to do anything. In the end, she was not able to finish her project in time for the contest.

But the last little pig had a new idea just waiting to be made, and all her supplies were ready in the are cupboard. All the markers with their caps had been put away in the marker bin , and the glue bottle was carefully closed tight so that it would not dry out. The scissors hung on the scissor peg, and the paper was carefully stacked in a neat pile, sorted by color.

This made it very easy for the little pig to create the perfect project and send it in time to win the contest!