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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]I would use a bin for each kid for their stuff if the hook isn’t enough. If you are home when the kids come home, you stand there as they come in the door and tell them to hang up their bag. They will be annoyed and start to do it so you leave them alone. [b]If they drop it before you get home, you walk them right back to hang it up every single time. If they keep not doing it, you have them stand there and hang it up, unhook it, hang it up, unhook it five times in a row for practice.   If they keep not hanging it up, you take the bag and all the stuff in it. If they want something out of it, you decide if you want to let them have it, but you don’t give the bag back for two days the first time. Give them a plastic grocery bag to carry their stuff in.[/b]

If you have to keep dealing with this, you charge them cash for each offense.[/quote]

I came to say something like this.  When I was growing up my sister and i had bedrooms on the 3rd floor - very open concept so from the 2nd floor you could tell if a bedroom light was left on.  My mother would glance up as she walked past the stairway to the 3rd floor and if she saw a light on, she'd call both of us up from the 1st floor to turn the light off.  Yes, she could have run up one flight of stairs and done it vs us having to go up 2 flights of stairs (and believe me, I muttered that IN MY HEAD many times) but eventually (and, sadly, it took a year or two!) we learned to TURN THE LIGHT OFF BEFORE we left our bedrooms.

She also called us up to put toilet paper in the roll if it was empty - she didn't do it, so it had to be one of us!

If you keep on doing it for them, even if you complain, yell, or whatever, all you are teaching them is that YOU will do it so why bother?  YOU must make it harder to NOT do it.   (AND, they need to TAKE THEIR HOMEWORK out, walk their lunchbox and water bottle to the kitchen counter as part of this process)

Now, make it easy - do the backpacks fit on the hooks (hooks aren't too close together?) Are there 2 hooks per kid, one for coat, one for backpack?  Does backpack have it's own basket?   Is there any easy place to put their sport shoes, boots and sneakers (if you don't want shoes in the house)?  EASY - like every kid has their own large basket for boots/shoes - or there is a shelf that easily fits all shoes/boots for all kids?  Once that's done, then it's a retraining thing,a nd it might take a year!  (sorry, you don't want to hear that). Also, I'd haul them out the SECOND you notice that, including if that's in the middle of a tv show, talking on the phone, watching a video, eating dinner, having a snack....  the more interruption it is, the faster they will learn.

BEST, though, is for you to not allow them to enter the house until they have done it - and that means if they need to pee or eat, they need to just do it quickly![/quote]

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