Reply to Vent about kids’ helping out with cleanup

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[quote=Anonymous]I agree with others that there need to be consequences for not doing the cleanup as asked - either loss of screen time or something else desirable or loss of the toys themselves. It sounds like this hasn’t been the case so far, so I think I would start with a family meeting where you lay out the new expectations.  It’s a perfect time for it - new year, new plan.

I agree with the posters who say that it helps a lot to break the task into smaller chunks. “Larla, you pick up the transformers while Olivia picks up the blocks.  I will help you by picking up this puzzle.”  Then as each kid finishes a job, they get a new one. If they don’t do their job, they face a consequence. And if one kid finishes cleaning up their share of the mess while the other one is still dawdling, that one gets to go do something fun while the other one finishes cleaning. And if you are helping them, you only clean if they are actively cleaning.

It also helps to stop and have smaller cleanup breaks during the day sometimes - not to clean up everything but if you notice that they abandoned the legos an hour ago and moved on to the toy kitchen, make them stop and pick up just the legos.

Make sure more or less everything has a designated place.  It lessens the mess in the first place if they don’t have to dump out all the toys to find the one they want.

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