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[quote=Anonymous]I haven't read the other responses so I apologize if these are repeats.

1. I would get rid of 1/3 of the stuff in the house.  In the kids' bedrooms, in the living room, in the playroom, in your bedroom,  etc.  that's probably why after 3 hours of cleaning the house it doesn't look good, it's messy because there are is too much stuff.  You don't need to throw it away - you could just put it in storage boxes in the basement (buy 25-30 of HUGE plastic boxes with lids that fit tight and stack) and you can bring things back if they are really missed, or you can rotate stuff.

Don't take the favorite toys, but honestly, we don't need 15 types of manipulatives in a household of 3. And nobody needs 25 stuffed animals in their room - they keep 4 and you put the 21 in a box in the basement.  If they really NEED the blue stuffed elephant they can put another one in the box, take the elephant.  In 6 months you can donate it all to goodwill if nobody misses the stuff.  Or you'll know what they NEED to have in their house and donate the rest.

2.  Everyone needs to clean things up. Even 2 year old, and for sure 4 and 8 year old.  Perhaps the 8 year old is being manipulative - that is something many children do - it's like yelling squirrel and pointing - gets us to look at and focus on something else and we forget what we were originally focusing on.  ("let's clean up your bedroom"  Oh, Mom, youknow what?  I was hoping I could take violin lessons nexzt year - can we talk about it? And then we do and we forget 30 minutes later about the cleaning up of bedroom.  Sound familiar?  Yeah, many of us have done it! :)

ALSO, many preschool behavior specialists will say that a child will misbehave to get the focus on something else than the thing that is hard for them.  Don't want (or feel overwhelmed with) cleaning?  Tantrum, gets the focus on my behavior, cleaning up never happens.  Ta Da, problem solved!

Instead of "please clean this whole big mess up" try:  "8 yr old, you put all the legos away in this box.  4 year old, you put all the stuffed animals on the couch.  2 year old, let's put the magnet blocks in this box."  And you help right along with them, guiding and directing the clean up.  Again, if there are 10 boxes of manipulatives available and they are all dumped and comingled, it will be harder to clean up so.... only 5 boxes and the other 5 in basement to be switched out when these are old and boring.

Frankly, if your 8 year old reacts to that with screaming and dramatics, et al they can go to their room and come out when calmed down and the legos will be right there when she comes back.  And if she screams at that, she can march herself back to her room and stay there until calm.  AND that means because of all that, she won't be able to have the popsicles that the other 2 enjoyed after the cleanup was done.  AND when she eventually does clean up, she still doesn't get a popsicle because she missed out on Popsicle time - it's not a reward for cleaning it's "there was a time (at 2pm) for popsicles.  Now it's 3 pm, it's not popsicle time anymore.  If you want popsicles, you need to clean with the rest of us."

If you do this:
1)give her structure around cleaning up - (its really hard to look at a room that is really messy and know where to start) and 
2) you follow through on sending her to her room to calm down vs. giving her attention for her outburts AND you have the tings waiting to be cleaned up when she comes back so she still cleans up AND she misses the fun thing (tv time, popsicles, reading before bed, whatever) due to her wasting of time with outbursts FOR TWO WEEKS

AND she still hasn't learned that screaming and dramatics won't get her anywhere, then I would consider she needs more help.   But I have a feeling that she knows she can distract you because you will talk about her feelings, focus on the feelings and drama and she's got you where she wants you - NOT making her clean up.

I wouldn't do this with a 4 and 2 year old, but an 8 yr old? She's older, she ought to be able to do all this without do much direction so it's long past time for her to learn.

Also, they all need to be OUTSIDE a lot more - but it's SO HOT HERE that it makes it hard.  But I'd have them splashing in the wading pool and running in the sprinkler at 9am for 1 hour every morning.  And then perhaps at 3pm again - keep cool, get outside, use up your energy, exhaust and tire everyone out, etc.[/quote]

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