Tidy playing area=happy children!!

[dropinthe]

I'm making a statement here but I firmly believe that children who are wallowing in toys/mess/rubbish are not happy ones!!

dropinthe have you been stepfording too?

my children are allowed 2 toys each downstairs which they have to put away if they want to play with anything else. they can play with what they want upstairs as long as they put it all away afterwards. TBH i relly think that this has taught my kids to respect their toys a bit more. they actually play with them. Whereas when i used to just let them get on with it, they used to get loads of toys out then just look bewlidered at them all, and not really play if that makes sense. Yes I probably am a cruel mummy but i think that its taught them respesct for their toys and made them appreciate that mess needs to be cleared up so if they do it as they are going along then there wont be so much to do at the end of the day.

I get the impression you are feeling a tad better today, Titania? You've managed to respond to my really silly thread,got dressed-any housework?? Well done!!

wow you've got them well trained!!!!

Chandra, what do I do with excess toys?

Hide them downstairs in the cellar and if their disappearance goes unnoticed either a) chuck them away if they're crap or b) put them in a charity bag.

In fact, sometimes if they're crap, I just cut out the first step and chuck them away.

They don't need them and they don't care about them. But I feel a rising hysteria at the thought of them cluttering up my house!

I'm going to have a car boot sale soon. the problem I have is that ds1 still plays with a lot of baby toys. making them hard to get rid of. Some of them have good therpay potential as well so I don't like to bin them, but then they just clutter the place up. we are stupidly overun at the moment.

Cd, you hoover your garden and expect us to believe you're not Bree?

aarrgghh I have been found out!

hoovering hte garden WAS a one off and I didn't do it anyway

No your gardener did it, didnt he!

she actually

this looks like a fun thread .. but as I've only read the initial post so far I thought I'd jump in with a ..

actually I think children who are allowed to make loads of mess but then at the end of the day encouraged to tidy their own play areas (with parental help) are happier children

oh good, I shall stop bothering then!

I disagree Twiglett - happy mummy=happy children and mummy is catastrophically, explosively unhappy when she sees piles and piles of toys on the floor! Therefore, children are very unhappy too!

Does anyone remember reading about that experiment where they took all the toys away at an East German Kindergarten? They left tables, chairs and blankets, and within 15 minutes the kids had created tents, houses, dens etc. and had massively creative games going on, unimpeded by toys. I'm often tempted to repeat the experiment in my house!

My kids love playing with blankets, making dens and so forth.

yesterday they made a jungle in their bedroom with a ball of wool. Very imaginative, but took me much longer to clear up than just putting away a stack of toys...

caligula .. the trick is to stop looking down

Message withdrawn

I'm going to suport CD here, but she may not want my support as I have previously confessed to bree-ish tendencies. I tidy every hour at least. In fact, we rarely do any one activity for more than an hour, and will always tidy (a bit) before moving on to the next. So we do things like putting the tea set back in the box before we get jigsaws out, but the box will stay out of the cupboard until the end of the day. And big things like dens and prams can stay out all day. Then at 5 pm exactly we start tidying everything except a couple of toys (which dd chooses) for ds. Dd really likes helping - she runs around singing "tidyup time, tidyup time" Then when all teh toys are back in the cupboard/corner, she gets to put the TV on for her hour of Beebies before Dh comes home.

Prufrock, have you got a spreadsheet showing which toys are in the box/out?

Souns a bit anal to me!! Only joking!!

No www, but I do have a chart showing which activities we are doing - I aim for one social, one art/craft and one outdoor/physical each day.

I am anal aren't I?

Dh used to joke about 'Lego Ankle' - an injury he used to get a lot when his stepchildren were little and left their Lego lying around. Now DD has moved onto Lego and our first case of Lego Ankle must be only a matter of days away. Does anyone else have similar, toy-based injuries to name and tell us about? Does Crayoned-Sofa count? We acquired two at the weekend.

I think juniper gave this to Sallystrawberry who then posted it, a copy also takes pride of place on my fridge!

COME IN BUT DON'T EXPECT TO FIND
ALL DISHES DONE, ALL FLOORS ASHINE.
OBSERVE THE CRUMPLED RUG, THE TOYS GALORE
THE SMUDGY FINGER-PRINTED DOOR
THE LITTLE ONES WE SHELTER HERE,
DON'T THRIVE ON SPOTLESS ATMOSPHERE.
THEY'RE MORE INCLINED TO DISARRAY
AND CARE FREE, EVEN MESSY PLAY
THEIR NEEDS ARE GREAT, THEIR PATIENCE SMALL.
ALL DAY LONG I'M AT THEIR BECK AND CALL.
IT'S "MOMMY COME! MOMMY SEE!"
WIGGLY WORMS AND RED-SCRAPED KNEES,
PAINTED PICTURES, BLOCKS PILED HIGH
MY FLOORS UNSHINED, THE DAYS GO BY.
SOME FUTURE DAY THEY'LL FLEE THIS NEST,
AND I AT LAST, WILL HAVE MY REST
AND WHAT REALLY MATTERS MORE?
A HAPPY CHILD OR A POLISHED FLOOR?
(author unknown)

It describes our home perfectly!

Ha ha ha Prufrock!