It has come to this. As I sit here, my girls are semi-enthusiastically cleaning their rooms. Why? I'll tell you why. In a fit of desperation, I told them I would PAY them anywhere from a nickel to a quarter for each object they gave away or threw out.
You read that correctly. I am paying them to throw things out. I don't think I can sink any lower in the parenting game at this point.
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| I OWN this. I USE it. |
It's not as if I don't know
how to get kids to clean their rooms. I'm a Flylady devotee, you know, and I've spent years marching into their room with a timer once a week, cheering them on to just do 15 minutes. Recently, I followed the advice from some Facebook post I found that swore all we would need is 10 minutes to make their room liveable.
In other words, I know all the tricks and I've been using them for over 20 years.
But lately, no matter how I approach tidying up, the girls will be flailing all over the room like dying fish on a beach, acting as though they had never seen a Swiffer in all their born days. They'll stand there and say to me, "WHAT stuff under the bed? We
cleaned it already." And I have to go in there and point out
every last bit of paper and used Kleenex and whatever else is apparently invisible to the tween girl eye. A couple of weeks ago, tired of the histrionics, I went in there by myself and dumped a ton of stuff into bins and stacked them in a corner of the room. But the room looked just as bad 3 days later.
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| Money talks, apparently |
Done. I AM DONE.
Final tally? $13 for Susie, $7.20 for Rachel. This is one heck of a precedent I've set. But in another month (because Larry is
at it again), each girl will have her own room (remember? David went to college), and at least I will know whose mess is whose. At least I will be able to shut them in their separate rooms to clean up and not have to hear them bickering over
every last pencil and Kleenex. Or, I could just keep the doors to their rooms shut all the time and not deal with it at all until they go to college. Hey, it worked with David.
Well, sort of...
[Dollars image: wpclipart]
In our house the kids get a few days notice before a deadline where I will clean their rooms. They will not like how I do it. They still wait until the last minute, but they do clean up.
ReplyDeleteIf I clean, stuff disappears. I'm old, memory is bad, don't know what happened to missing stuff. I have a friend who sweeps each room into a pile, gives the kids 5 minutes to rescue their stuff, then throws any kids stuff still there in the trash.
ReplyDeleteIf I clean, stuff disappears. I'm old, memory is bad, don't know what happened to missing stuff. I have a friend who sweeps each room into a pile, gives the kids 5 minutes to rescue their stuff, then throws any kids stuff still there in the trash.
ReplyDeleteIf I clean, stuff disappears. I'm old, memory is bad, don't know what happened to missing stuff. I have a friend who sweeps each room into a pile, gives the kids 5 minutes to rescue their stuff, then throws any kids stuff still there in the trash.
ReplyDeleteI once cleaned my daughter's room while she was at the grandparents, and through away an entire large trash bag of stuff.
ReplyDeleteThe only thing she noticed missing was an old tattered pillow.
Your girls don't know it, but getting them to clean their own room (by whatever motivation necessary) is an excellent thing.
ReplyDeleteI think I need you to come to my house with your timer and give me 15 minutes to clean up (my desk, the front closet, or any other spot).
I wouldn't call it a "low" I would call it "getting it done"
ReplyDeleteYou got THREE WHOLE DAYS out of your cleaning efforts? You deserve a medal, if you ask me.
ReplyDeleteWell played. I think no matter how you bribed them, if it worked, it was a good investment.
ReplyDeleteI usually just go in with a garbage bag and throw my own money away.
ReplyDeleteAnd here I thought it was boys who couldn't see trash on their own floors.
ReplyDeleteMy eyes have been opened!