I feel like I am always saying “it’s time to clean up those toys”! I feel really strongly about teaching my kids that it is important to clean up after themselves and although I can’t expect Cody to clean like I would, I can expect him to put his toys away after he uses them. I would prefer that his toys are cleaned up before lunch/ nap time and then before dinner/ bed time. Cody loved cleaning up his toys when he was younger, but several months ago, I started having issues with him being defiant and not wanting to clean up after himself at all. I posted about this on our FB and twitter page so I could get some feedback and here were some of the ideas from other moms and other ideas I came up with myself.
- Put on or sing a “Clean Up Song”. We have a great clean up song we play sometimes when he needs a little push. You can check it out on Super Simple Songs website.
- Put the timer on and have them clean up and anything that isn’t cleaned up goes to good will (or the trash). This didn’t work so well for us. Cody gets a little overwhelmed when he feels like he is being timed, but I know that this has been a great tool for other moms.
- Have them clean up one thing before they can get something else out. This has been KEY for us! I bought a ton of clear plastic bins that we used to organize his little toys (figurines, animals, legos, kitchen food etc.). If he gets one of his bins out to play with he knows that he has to clean that up before he gets another bin out. Most of the time, I don’t even have to tell him to do it, he just does. This doesn’t work as well when he has friends over, but even if it works 80% of the time, I will take it!
- Have them clean up their toys 20 minutes before lunch or dinner and then let them pick out one toy to play with at the table while they wait to eat. This has also worked great for us. Getting toys cleaned up before lunch and/ or dinner was so stressful because I felt like I was yelling at him to get it cleaned up while trying to get lunch on time and up for nap. Now, Cody cleans up early enough and then we either do a fun activity I have picked out from productive parenting or I have several dry erase activity boards I let him work on while I make lunch/ dinner.
These were the boys over a year ago!! What a MESS! :)
Clean up time certainly isn’t perfect, but we are working on it :) Any other tips or tricks on getting the kiddos to clean up after themselves?
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