Did you teach your kids to clean up after themselves?
I drive by some houses and the yards are just littered with hot wheels and toys and trikes and bikes and tents and balls and baby pools….they look like they’re having a garage sale.
I always made my kids put the stuff up when they were done. It was work sometimes. In the beginning I had to stand over them to make sure they did it. Or, if I went outside and they hadn’t, I had to track them down and make them go out again. Sure, it would have been easier, in the beginning, to just “Do it myself.” But I knew that, in the end, if I said, “OK! Time to clean up!” I could just walk away and know it would be done.
When I had my daycare, it was the same thing. I had 6 – 10 kids, and a clean house and yard. We were on a schedule.
As my kids got older, they also had general household chores they had to complete before I got home from work. Again, sometimes it was like pulling teeth. More trouble than it was worth, it seemed like. But I stuck with it and it finally got to the point I only needed to tell them to do it, and they did it. Better yet, I’d call from work and tell them I’d be home in an hour and I expected their chores to be done and I’d hear, “Oh, they’re already done!”
Did you have those kinds of expectations for your kids? Did you ever know of someone who didn’t, and why?
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Not well enough.
My kids are college age now and will both be moving out in the next few months. Tidying up has been a source of friction lately.
Yes, but once my daughter hit her teens her room was a heap of crap. lol
I let it go most of the time but insisted she clean up when company/family was coming over. Our biggest teen blowout fight was over her cleaning her room one day, she was almost 16.
I was at work one day in the summer and called home and she assured me she was working on it.
I walked in at 6 pm and she was sitting on the couch painting her toenails on the coffee table watching TV and had only managed to strip her bed and throw her dirty laundry into my room! haha
OMG..I was fucking livid! We seriously almost came to blows for the 1st time ever. I took away her music, video games, computer etc. and she stormed out to go to her dads.
I refused to let her come back for anything until she finished cleaning her room. It was a battle of the wills of epic proportion.
Aaaannnd…who won @Coloma? My daughter was also terrible about cleaning her room. She isn’t the best house keeper, even today. When they were little, she only cleaned her room voluntarily twice a year: Christmas Eve and Easter Eve. Someone told her that neither Santa nor the Easter Bunny visited kids with messy rooms.
My son, on the other hand, was meticulous about keeping his room clean. He’s now married and has 4 kids. Due to child care costs, his wife quit working and stays home with the kids. He doesn’t’ complain, but I think he gets a little frustrated with his wife’s lack of housekeeping skills.
When we go over, on his days off, he’s often cleaning some part of the house, like the bathroom, or something. Or folding mountains of laundry.
@Dutchess_III She did, ultimately. Went to spend the rest of the summer at daddy dearests who never made her do anything. Of course being the mom I was the whip cracker evil one. She did apologize years later when she grew up. 16 to 19 were the worst years with her. gah…but that’s all water under the bridge now, thank god.
Ahem, they have sta…ohhh, you know by now
Yeah, I know @Coloma. Unfortunately my daughter didn’t make it past 18 before she had a baby…so it’s rocked her world ever since.
@ucme that “sta…” is called “chilluns!”
staff is called chilluns! Didn’t you really think I couldn’t finish “sta…”? It’s you dude!
I don’t have biological children, but I do have stepchildren and I nanny for a little girl, and yes this is something that I expect in my household. With the older kids, I’m a bit more lax, as I want their space to be their space, but I expect anything that could be classified as “filth” to be dealt with immediately. No food/plates, drinks/cups, wet towels or clothes, dirt/mud, stains, etc. Mess is one thing, filth is unacceptable.
I’ve taught both of mine. Funny enough, one was born wanting to organize and he was always tidy but sucked at cleaning, no matter what.
The other one was messy from the beginning but was great at organizing and cleaning but it never quite took. She knows to do this before visitors come though.
I think in the end people are going to do what they are going to do. Time can change them. In my home I had no choice as a kid but to be clean and tidy. We were 7 people in a 3 bedroom apartment with one bathroom and small closets. You learn to purge and put things away or you will live under rubble.
@ANef_is_Enuf I guess I should have specified “outside of their own personal space,” like their bedrooms. I meant, like, in the yard, or in the house, or in a common playroom.
I agree with you on a kid’s personal space.
Jeebs, @Pandora! I can imagine! My son and daughter had to share a room when they were little. You could draw a line down the center of the room, the differences on their two sides were so striking. My son had his little hotwheels all lined up, according to whatever criteria he had in mind, whereas my daughter’s side looked like a tornado hit it.
@Dutchess_III Yeah, my son did the same thing. Line up his toys, and shoes. Kept his drawers closed and very minimal stuff on the furniture and always tried to fix his bed. Although he sucked at it.
My daughter. Everything ended up on the floor. Have her clean by day and by night everything was where it started, only with extra. Sometimes she would go to her brothers room to play and he would get annoyed after the twister she left in the room. She’s way better now as an adult. They eventually learn when they find there is no one who’s going to help, or drown in the rubble. Funny enough, she has learned to purge but married someone who hates to throw stuff out. :(
He’s not exactly a hoarder. He will throw things out. But if he thinks a little repair will fix it, it goes to the projects pile.
When I was living with my sister and her 8 year old twins and 16 year old boy the plan was pretty much “if your crap is out after you go to bed we reserve the right to lock it in the shed as long as we want to.” However, there was also the rule about you can do whatever the fuck you want to do in your bedroom as long as we can’t smell it.
I’m living with one of those @Pandora. Drives me insane!!!!
I did, but it didn’t stick with the youngest one. He and his wife live like pigs.
When their two boys are staying with us, weekends during school and week days during school breaks, they have to keep their room and playroom clean, and pick up after themselves in the rest of the house.
Absolutely. My daughter is thirteen and she cleans her own room, changes her sheets, and does all her own laundry.
She’s also pretty good about helping to clean the rest of the house if asked.
I don’t believe in having “chores” of giving an allowance. We’ve always taught her that we are all on the same team here and that you help out around the house because you live here – starting with your own stuff.
On my kid’s 13 birthday, one of their presents was to teach them how to use the washer and dryer,properly. Then it was hands off for me! They were excited for the first couple of weeks. After that, no so much. I got them their own laundry baskets. In the beginning their clothes would try and sneak into my laundry basket. I’d take them out and put them back in theirs. It didn’t take more than a couple of mornings, when they realized they had nothing clean to wear for school, before they got with the program.
I didn’t have money to give allowances. If they ever needed money they’d come to me and say, “What can I do to earn $10. I need it for this and such,” and I’d give them work, over and above their regular, unpaid jobs.
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