TidyKidz - We're habit forming!

For those with multiple “blessings,” may this be as successful a tool for you as it was for me.  When making specific and direct requests of your kids – instead of putting the focus on the one who is non-compliant by threatening consequences,  assign a special reward to the one that complies quickly and thoroughly. 

Here is an example of what I mean:

At the pool today, I gave all 3 of my kids a very direct expectation that when 7:30 came,  I would signal them to get out of the pool to dry off and get ready to go home.  Two of the three were messing around and jumped back in the pool a couple of  times but the third child stayed out of the pool from the moment I waived the signal and walked over to me to dry off and go home (surprisingly, not the one I would have guessed).  That child was told he would get an extra scoop of ice cream for dessert while the other two got the normal allotment.  The two non-compliant kids looked at me with perplexity because they weren’t really being punished but they didn’t get the reward either.  They could not really complain or protest because of the obviousness of their lack of concern for the respectfully and clearly laid-out request.  I have to admit, I was feeling pretty clever!

Victorious!

I’ve been getting a lot of questions lately about what to do with kids who just don’t care about picking up their stuff, cleaning their rooms, etc.  I’ve heard everything from flat out “No”, to “I don’t know how” and even (a personal fave from a 9 yr old) “This is why you need to stay out of my business”. There is no question that once we’ve let our kids develop bad habits it takes a lot to correct them.   The level of uncooperativeness varies depending on how long a child has been able to beg, bargain, whine or wait their way out of responsibility.  I include waiting as a method because it’s true and VERY common. Today’s kids have learned to wait their way out of things due to the busy schedules of family life.

In order to promote change you must first take a good look at the message you are sending out to your kids.  Take some time to look around at your own personal space and get it in shape.  Make a list of the things you want to start with like, 1. Make your bed everyday, 2. Put your dirty clothes in the laundry basket – not on the floor and so on.  Taking these steps first will allow you to feel more confident when you sit down with your kids and have “The Talk”.  You will radiate confidence and your kids will get the message that you are expecting cooperation.

“The Talk” is simply this:

A sweet delivery!

Pick a time when you can gather everyone around the table and let them know that change is a comin’.   You might serve a family favorite dessert and then begin by letting them know this is something you expect from everyone and lay out the guidelines very specifically.  Pass it out on paper if you want.  Chore Charts work well for the ones who need to “see” what you mean.  For those with little ones, they won’t understand exactly what you are saying but they will certainly understand the tone of the family meeting and through observation will get the idea to some degree.  Feel lucky if you have some young ones, you are catching them BEFORE they develop bad habits.

Be very direct and specific about what you expect and why.  Believe it or not, there are some kids who will really take to the idea and get excited about it.  When you present the idea to the family as a group, it gives the plan more energy and a greater chance to succeed.  Discuss the potential rewards and consequences for cooperation and non-cooperation.  Make time for questions to be asked and let everyone put their two cents worth in but just make sure you restate that this is not optional.  Change is much easier to adapt to when you’ve been confronted with it in advance and have been given an opportunity to clarify, disagree, cry – whatever the case may be.  Make yourself some notes for the family meeting… this will help you stay on track and ensure that everything gets covered.

Cooperation

There is one caveat to the level of success you can achieve through the changing of the boundaries.  That caveat is this:

You are teaching your kids how to develop good habits and you can develop either good habits or bad habits through consistency.  If you are consistently in-consistent you will get bad results.  You must be ready to change and have the strength and stick-to-it-tiveness to see it through.  So don’t start this until you are really dedicated to sticking to it. You can experience more of the same, get worse, or really put things moving in a better direction, it’s up to you.

The little successes will give you the motivation and confidence to stick to your plan.  Celebrate them and give yourself a little pat on the back – this is good stuff you’re doing here!

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Summer has arrived… awesome sunny days, pool parties, days at the lake… followed by swim diapers, sunscreen, aloe, bug spray, band-aids, sunglasses, water toys and so on.

Have you ever found yourself caught completely off-guard by an ENTIRE season of the year?  For some reason a trip to the pool can just pop up out of nowhere and the next thing you know you’re digging for bathing suit tops, scrounging for sunscreen, pulling out that beach bag with last year’s Ziplock full of mashed up Cheetos and old squished up sandwich wrappers at the bottom.

That alone can throw a spontaneous invitation to fun in the sun, overboard in a hurry.

Most of us have that one or two weekends on the calendar each year that signals a change in the season which requires us to switch gears.  Try this tip for getting your groove on this season!

Pick a day to clear out some space in a closet – preferably one with plenty of shelves and label one of them your Season “On” Shelf – S.O.S

Here’s what goes on your S.O.S. for summer (for example):

Sunscreen (buy new each year… it doesn’t have a long shelf life!)

Bug spray

Paradise

Beach towels or mats

Water shoes (after they are dry)

Chapstick

Beach Bag

Small water toys (use a bin)

Goggles

Water camera

Babies swim diapers

I could go on and on but I think you get the idea!  Keeping all your season specific stuff in the same spot makes it easy for anyone to throw the necessary garb together for a spontaneous trip to the pool.  More importantly, everyone knows where it goes when you get home and even the kids can help put things away!!!!

When the season ends… take a little time to pack up what lives on for next year in a storage bin and re-load your S.O.S with all of the “gotta have it” items for the next season.

You might even find yourself enjoying life’s little adventures a bit more when your S.O.S. is on your side!!

TKMom

OK, let’s get down to brass tacks here everyone.  Some things just never change and this particular issue is no different.   You CANNOT expect your little people to keep there rooms picked up if your room looks like a set for the show Clean House (prior to the clean part).    You may get lucky a time ot two but ultimately our kids do what we do, not what we say.  Go ahead, argue with yourself… we’ll wait  :-O   :-#   :-!    ;-]    :-{) 

Great!  So glad you are back and hopefully you have reached your senses and understand that “monkey see, monkey do” is more than just a quaint phrase.  We have all watched our kids emulate grown-up behavior and it’s no accident that children of all ages, socio-economic backgrounds, ethnicities, religions and on – all do it!  It’s UNIVERSAL!  They will emulate the good AND the bad no matter how much we try to tell them what to do and how to do it – they are WATCHING!

Let’s have a little therapy session, shall we ? (purple is a nice soothing color, right?)

So ask yourself this question, “Am I doing the things I am asking of my kids?”  I know, that was not nice was it?!  Depending on your answer, you are feeling somewhere between the June Cleaver type and the Tazmanian Devil.  If you are June Cleaver you may be thinking all is well with the world.  I’m not really concerned about offending any Junes out there because Junes are doing all the work themselves and probably aren’t reading this blog anyway.  As for the Tazs, you know who you are(admit it) and chances are you already feel bad enough about the state of your stuff, so let me approach this from somewhere around the Malcolm in the Middle area. 

You GOTTA do it!  Here are a few tips to get you started

• Start with making your bed, it’s big and just that alone makes a noticeable difference. 
• Then pick up everything off of the floor and pile it on your bed.  Set your timer for 7 minutes and don’t stop moving until it’s all put away, PROPERLY!  Yes you do only have 7 minutes so MOVE IT.  Don’t turn of the timer until your done.
• Next comes the dresser – what in the world is all that stuff doing up there?  Get a trash bag – half of it can be thrown away anyway.  If you are a pocket paper collector, get a colorful jar and use it to store your 80 million tiny pieces of paper that pile up on the dresser once you’ve purged your pockets - go through it once a month and purge old receipts, notes to self, etc.  
• One way to keep the bedroom from going bonkers is to Not Not Not bring anything in that is not bedroomy.  There is no reason for your gardening shoes to be in your closet or for the weeks mail to be on top of the 80 million little pieces of paper on your dresser.  If it doesn’t come in… it won’t have to be taken out.   Make it a rule, then follow it!

Make a chart, or get in touch with your inner child and use one of ours (major points with the kids).  Use it to make sure you pay at least 5 minutes of attention to your room everyday.  I can say from experience, 5 minutes a day is all you really need to keep your room from becoming the very thing your sweet little person uses against you when you ask them to clean theirs!

This is a fun way to get kids started cleaning up in any super messy room-ADVENTURE STYLE! Ideally this works best with more than one mate but if all the others have walked the plank and one mate is all that’s left then so be it! (As long as the one mate left isn’t you, then this would just be weird)

Take a big piece of paper and put a giant red X on it. This X goes on the floor in the middle of the room and an unknown reward written on a small piece of paper goes underneath (don’t let them see this part). The reward should be something of particular interest to the mates involved in the adventure (this promotes auto-participation in the next adventure, of which there will surely be one). Everyone gets to pick a pirate name of course and they must speak in their best pirate voices throughout the entire adventure. If they have pirate dress-up clothes – by all means let them dress for the occasion!

All of the items around the ship(room) that are causing the ship’s deck to be a wreck are picked up and placed on the big red X. I mean everything from the clothes to stuffed animals to coloring books and so on gets piled on this X. Once the pile is complete – the mates look around the room and put away any remaining debris hanging around.

Now it’s time to get to the bottom of the pile and find out what is under that big red X! This is when you let the mates know there is treasure under that red X and they can’t see what it is until all the items in the pile are put in their proper place and the red X can be lifted. They will be scooting around the room like little deckhands in a hurry. If you have any pirate songs on CD play those too!

Side note: make sure the reward is something that can be redeemed fairly quickly after the task has been completed. Not trying to promote instant gratification but for this tip – the quicker the better on the reward end. Total prep time is about 4 minutes to get this rolling.

This little gem also works well with a cowboy theme -YEEHAAA MATES!

TKMate

Oh how I long for the day when I can have my very own bathroom and have it all to myself.   Not only do I have to share it with my husband who secretly steals my eye cream, but my kids just can’t get enough of me and insist upon doing their “bathroom biz” in my bathroom too!  Everything from tooth scrubbing, hair brushing, whizzing, dressing and undressing happens in MY bathroom…all despite the fact that we have two other bathrooms in perfectly good working order.   Even when I am in the bathroom alone… I can hear them, tracking me… zoning in on my location until WHAM!  Alone time OVER… wah…wah…wahhh (like the sound Pacman makes when you lose) L

With all of this in and out of MY bathroom, we find the bathroom stuff getting all mixed up.  There is nothing creepier than realizing you just brushed your pearly whites with someone else’s tooth brush…EEEWWWW!   It only takes once for that to happen before you go on a serious hunt for a solution.  Here’s what I came up with and it works like a charm…

We each have a bin with our name on it and all of our bathroom paraphernalia goes in the bin and under the sink or on the shelf in the linen closet.  That way there isn’t a bunch of stuff sitting on the sink, etc, etc.  I bought some cool stickers so each of the kids could personalize theirs which really got them interested in the project and I believe it’s what helped make it so successful.  It also makes getting ready a little quicker because no one is running around looking for their stuff.

I suppose I could’ve just kicked everyone out of MY bathroom but then I would have missed the story my 1st grader told me one morning while we were brushing our teeth together – about the boy that told her she was the “beautifullest” girl in class and gave her the thumbs up and a wink – and then she said “Mom, he really meant it, like ya know… meant it.”  Truth is, we have some pretty real conversations doing the “bathroom biz” and I’ll miss it terribly someday.

TKMom                                                                

The "Beautifullest" Girl

Today, think of something you like to do, then do it!  Better yet, make a list of some of your favorite things and carve out some time each week to be good to yourself.  You should be able to come up with at least 5 things (more if you can), here are some examples:

1) Read a book or favorite magazine

2) Paint your nails

3) Do a skincare treatment (a personal favorite, very relaxing)

4) Color – yes like as in coloring book

5) Plant some flowers

If your life is anything like mine it’s just go, go, go.  Eventually you have to stop and re-charge or your go will have gone and went.  Have a little you time!  Sit down with a nice place mat, have a piece of pie and some tea – use a cloth napkin and a pretty cup.   Take the time to be a fraction as good to yourself as you are to everyone else in your house. 

YOU’RE WORTH IT!!

Happy Mother’s Day to all!

TKMom

Someone recently asked, “When do kids finally start to appreciate life not being a complete disaster area?”  Well, honestly, some kids may never get there but I believe that to be a select few.   For most, appreciating a well kept room, good hygiene and organized belongings takes time. There are those who are just born with it where others have to be taught, encouraged and in some cases threatened with banishment from the kingdom (just kidding).

We have 3 kids and they cover the full spectrum from Mighty Tidy to Tornado.  The little one (girl) is an absolute wiz at tidy, and let me tell you, she has taught us all a thing or two.  The oldest, also a girl, reminds me of a phrase my parents used quite often when referring to my organizational skills, “You’d lose your head if it wasn’t attached to your shoulders.”  And then there is the middle child (boy), who will clean up his room but then it’s sectioned off like a museum so nothing gets move from its sacred spot.  I find myself creeping tip toe through his room so as not to knock over one of his very deliberately placed toys.  These are, after all, very strategically placed and trust me he’ll notice if Mr. Bionicle™ has moved to a vulnerable position against the great Bakugan™ foe… it’s a battle of epic proportion!

We run the gamut from, the total standoff… “clean up or perish”, to “oh the heck with it, my room is a mess too and I’m tired”!!!

Regardless if you’re dealing with kids who take to it instinctively or those who fight it every step of the way, breaking tasks down into smaller “bite size” chunks is a vital step towards success.  For example, if you have a child who’s room looks like a cyclone hit it and the mere mention of the words “clean up your room” turn your once sweet, good natured child into a convulsing, melt down having, professional whiner who you begin to refer to as your husband’s (or wife’s) child….here is a suggestion that will help.  

Day one: start with making the bed only.

Day two: make the bed and pick up 5 things off of the floor.

Day three:  make the bed, 5 more things off the floor and 5 items to be thrown away or donated to charity.  (you can make it 3 things if 5 starts to point you towards whiner territory)

Day four: make the bed, 5 things off the floor and 5 items to be trashed, stored or donated… starting to get the idea??? When these tasks are being completed, let your kids dress up in play clothes or listen to fun music… anything to promote a little use of the imagination. 

A cyclone is just too overwhelming a task to think of cleaning up all at once.  If you can live with the mess for a few more days and let them make smaller strides towards cleaning it up… you will have truly accomplished something and so will they!

TKMom

The amount of paper out our house can just get out of hand.  The mail box just won’t stop generating it, the kids backpacks regurgitate it all over the kitchen table every afternoon, my desk seems to reproduce it and let’s not even talk about my husbands desk!  Or  maybe let’s… I’ve never seen a person balance paper stacks that high in my life, not real life anyway, he took those cartoons with the stacks of paper to the ceiling, VERY seriously. 

All we ever hear about is “go green” this, “conserve” that, yet the paper just never stops coming.  I try to keep up with it but inevitably I get busy taking care of other business and it starts happening…. the stacks begin to build.  Don’t think you can let the paper actually start to touch each other… that’s when things get really out of hand.  The next thing you know the paper is mocking you… snickering as you walk past it,  watching as you start to twitch because it’s all so important and if you throw it away you might just end up elbow deep in the garbage can searching for it at 3am.   

I categorize it, shred it, stack it, file it, burn it, recycle it, store it and it just keeps coming back.  

With all of the e-statements and electronic billpay-ability, it appears as a society we are trying to reduce the paper mockery, but somehow just can’t live without it. Until a time when it’s all plastic card waving, retina scans and video advertising it’s gonna be us vs. the paper.

Here is a couple of things we do to minimize the paper snickering -

1) The one touch rule – paper comes home and goes direcly to it’s home (most of the time) which could be anything from the filing cabinet, the bill holder, the circular file or the kids “I wouldn’t dream of throwing this away bins.”  That way it doesn’t go from the desk to the kitchen counter to the table and back to the desk again.  Believe me it helps!

2) Each of our kids has a trey for their papers so we can get through our “oh so busy week” without things getting spread all over the house.  On the weekend we go through the trey with the kids and throw some away, keep some for re-use (ie.) if you’ve only used one side and it’s not a keeper, keep a stack of it and use the backside for scratch paper or doodling.  Do I see a little green happenin’?

TKMom

Keep baskets around the house as a temporary holding area for clutter. Random toys, books, socks, etc. always end up being left behind now and then. The baskets allow you to get them out of the way for the moment. You could even have a basket for each child which they are responsible for checking on a regular basis. This saves you several trips through the house, up and down the stairs and allows the kids to take responsibility for their stuff.