Should I expect my 3 yr old to tidy up after himself?

[Libby65]

My ds is almost three and loves to dump his toys on the floor, but it is so tedious trying to get him to pick them up again. He has just reached the stage of trying to ignore me when I ask him to do something, so after asking him about six times to pick up his toys, I had to threaten to send him to his bedroom and then eventually he picked them all up. Is it ok to expect him to do this at his age?

The reason I'm pushing him is that he will get a big box of toy cars, dump them all on the floor, play with them for a couple of minutes and then walk away and leave them. Hence there is mess all over the place if I don't try to keep it under control, and he will expect someone else to pick everything up. I feel that if he learns about tidying up NOW, it won't be such an issue later on. What do other mums think?

P.S. My husband thinks he is too young to tidy up his mess, and I suspect he thinks I'm being too hard on ds.

It's probably too young to expect him to do it without prompting but not to young to start teaching him that things should be tidied away. You'll need to tidy up with him though.

If you could see the state of our house, you'd realise that even a 4 yo can not tidy up after himself! He still does the emptying a box of cars trick. However, both he and DS2 (2) will help to tidy up when asked.

Luckily we've got a ds who loves to tidy up. From very early on we said that after he has finished with one toy he has to put it away before getting another out. I think nursery has helped with this as they instil tidying up in the little ones! I'm not saying he's angelic by any means but he genuinely enjoys putting things away and making the house tidy again! Bless!

Pancake - I've got one of those too - an obsessive cleaner - he likes to make messes and shout "MESS" before tidying up - especially likes to throw piles of pencils. I expect he will grow out of it by the time it would be really helpful!

Routines seem to help - perhaps if you try to get the room cleared before they can have tea or go to the park - like a reward system?

message withdrawn

My DS even tidies up other peoples messes - if he is walking along the road he will pick up litter and give it to me !!

I don't think it's too young, but agree with the others that you need to do it with him. Make it light-hearted, but insist he helps you tidy up, and that he only gets one thing out at once. I definitely think that starting young and learning about tidying up does make it easier later on, as they know what is expected.

When they were very young if they refused to help me tidy something away before getting the next thing out, I would just put them in the playpen/cot/highchair whatever and they had to sit and watch whilst I did it before they got something else out. I think this sort of approach also improves their concentration span and encourages them to play with something for a longer timespan.

We have masses of toys (the boys are the first children of their generation so have doting grandparents, uncles, aunts etc.) and things need to be kept in some order. The boys have learned always to do this - they still need prompting and reminding and sometimes we have a huge battle over it - but generally they are pretty good. It drives me barmy when they have friends over who just get everything out at once and make a huge mess within about 10 mins.

HTH

Libby65, Can you make it into a game where you help him. What I do with my dd is we set the kitchen timer and make a game of putting everything away before the timer goes off. Although my dd is now nearly 6 she still likes this game although there are times when she still won't co-operate, but other times when she'll tidy up without me helping.
I don't think at 3 he's to young to start learning, it's never too early to try and start a good habit in my opinion. But he may be more willing if you helped him as well to start with and in time may enjoy playing the tidy up game by himself.

We are just starting to teach our 12 month old DD about this and so far she is enjoying the new game! At nursery they try to get the little ones involved in tidying toys and books away too so thought it would make it more consistent if I started too at home as well. She will help to pick toys up and put them away in the big plastic tubs we have for them. Trouble is she likes tidying everything else up - threatened to put DD's new (expensive) watch in the bin last week!!!

I don't think three is too young at all. The sooner they get used to clearing up after themselves the better IMO. Maybe i'm too hard on mine (my mil thinks so!) But my 4 yr old and 7 yr old both have their little jobs to do. They have a chart each and it earns them sweets and spending money every friday. The 4 yr old has to put his clothes in the wash at night and tidy toys up before bed and sometimes before nursery. I have to remind him but then he gets on with it, although he really doesn't like tidying up and at three would point blank refuse to do it. I once threatened to banish his toy to the shed if he didn't tidy up and guess what, he preferred the shed option!
I may be too strict tho, i don't know?????

My "top tip" for tidying is to keep the boxes with lots of little bits out of their reach, so they have to ask for it if they want to play with it. Then you can get them to put away other stuff before getting the box out for them.

I also think that if you want to encourage them to tidy, you have to be a tidy person too, ie practise what you preach.

My 3 and a half year old is quite good at tidying if I tell him specifically and politely what I want him to do. So not "put the cars away", but "could you put all your cars in the blue box, please", then when that is done, "now can you put all the jigsaw pieces in the jigsaw box".

I've also learnt that it is some while before they are able to put books on a shelf, maybe 5 years old. Before that they just don't seem to get the knack of holding up the books on the shelf in order to get more books on. So with books it's just "bring all the books to mummy" and I put them on the shelf.

I don't think 3 is too young and like you am paranoid about becoming a mum who cleans up after her kids all the time ( ie a slave)
My 3 and a half yo boy responds very well to a game where I count to 20 to get him to put all the toys away.
Otherwise mild bribery works well.
"put your toys back in the box and we can all watch CBeebies" or whatever.
Good luck

I certainly don't want my children to think that I am here to tidy up after them, and have always (well, for a long time) made sure that they join in with the tidying up - I find turning it into a competition helps (actually, this helps with more or less everything ). However, this is where yet again the difference between my 2 dds really shines through- dd1 (aged 6) is usually willing and helpful whereas dd2 (aged nearly 4) is always "too tired" or "has a tummyache" so is unable to help without some strong encouragement (or bribery as others might call it! )

Thanks for your input everyone. I do actually help him put things away, eg I say "Come and help mummy put your toys away now", but he is still very reluctant to do it. Judetheobscure, I've tried the polite approach, which really does not seem to make any difference - in the end it comes down to me being firm with him, in order to get him to do it. As far as leading by example, our house is kept tidy and clean so it's not that he doesn't understand what tidiness is. If the house even starts to look like a tip, I get on to it straight away or it will get away from me.

I've noticed in the last few days that he will make a point of doing the opposite to what I ask, like if I say "bath time" he'll run in the opposite direction to get away from me, or if I ask him to do something, he will deliberately take his time to do it, or won't do it at all. Perhaps it's the onset of the terrible three's??? If there is such a thing... a friend of mine found her son harder at three than he was at two, so perhaps this is the case with some children. Sigh...

Libby, I'm so glad that it's not just my little cherub that plays up! (DS will be 3 in July)

He used to be quite helpful, but recently,when I ask him to help me tidy his toys, before we go out/bedtime he just ignoes me OR even more (frustrating/hilarious depending on what sort of day I've had)just says "No, Mummy do it, I'm tired!"

I Guess, like you, I am just going to have to keep at it! Some days I'm so tired myself I want him up and in bed so I end up doing it myself to get it done. I do know that it's hard.

Ah well, just reading this thread has given the me a boost of encouragement....roll on tonight! LOL

Noisy

We've been cracking the whip here for a while too, from an early age DS1 has been asked to put things in the bin, help tidy his toys etc. Now when he hears the hoover going on he quite often shouts "Oh, time to tidy" and runs up to his room to clear the floor so I can hoover. Don't know where he gets his tidy streak from, must be his daddy!

Libby, I'm so glad that it's not just my little cherub that plays up! (DS will be 3 in July)

He used to be quite helpful, but recently,when I ask him to help me tidy his toys, before we go out/bedtime he just ignoes me OR even more (frustrating/hilarious depending on what sort of day I've had)just says "No, Mummy do it, I'm tired!"

I Guess, like you, I am just going to have to keep at it! Some days I'm so tired myself I want him up and in bed so I end up doing it myself to get it done. I do know that it's hard.

Ah well, just reading this thread has given the me a boost of encouragement....roll on tonight! LOL

Noisy

I think a child can learn to put away toys really when they can understand simple instructions - about 18 months onwards. But of course them understanding and actually doing it are two different things!

When my ds was about 2 I got fed up of him throwing toys all over the place. Now we only have a small box in the living room with a selection of toys (he is 3 3/4). This is rotated every week or so with the other toys. I find now he will only play with one or two of those things anyway. They do seem to grow out of the emptying everything out phase eventually. Anyway maybe have smaller boxes thus preventing the problem occuring in the first place?

Oh yes indeed you can have the terrible threes! Much harder to cope with in many ways as the tantrums tend to be about more complex issues. Also they are a lot stronger and more willful!

Simple and brilliant idea Eulalia! Ds has 5 or six large boxes of toys in the lounge right now and empties them all regularly. He only actually plays with a few of them so guess what ??? the rest are off to the cupboard.

Eulalia yes I've noticed the independent streak coming out a lot in the last couple of weeks, he is really talking and expressing himself now too. Perhaps this all adds to the problem.

Although he did have an angelic moment this morning - he was sitting watching Maisy and accidently spilt a bit of juice. He said "Oh no! Spilt juice on the floor!" Then he jumped up, got some paper towel, wiped up the mess and threw it in the bin. I gave him a big kiss and praised him for doing it, but it's probably going to be his first and last good deed for the day.

I think he's too young to tidy up on his own but I bet he'd love to help if you made it into a game. "let's see who can find all the blue cars" . I doubt that it'll make your life any easier, but it could be fun.