Please tell me how you taught your children to follow basic rules to help keep things clean & tidy. I feel like I'm banging my head against a brick wall!!

[Jemster]

I'm really starting to feel down about the constant crap that builds up in this house. A bit of it comes from each of us; me, DH & ds 7 & dd 3 but I feel like I am constantly trying to tackle it and get things in order & I just never achieve it.
I know the 3 year old is a bit young to fully understand but she is actually much better than the 7 year old as she likes to copy me cleaning & tidying.
DS will not put anything away ever despite me asking leaves cars all over the place, I stood on one earlier. If he has a snack be won't take his plate out & leaves wrappers lying around. We have two throws on our sofas which they like cuddling up in but he thinks nothing of dragging across the laminate floor or dropping it there. I am forever picking them up off the floor. He drops his clothes on bedroom floor despite me explaining to him they need to be put in washing bin or on his bed. It feels as though he has no respect for any of our belongings or our home or how knackered I am trying to keep up with it all & go to work.

I'm not wanting to blame him as like I said we all contribute to the clutter in this house. I just want to know how do you get children to listen & understand the reasons behind the jobs we ask them to do? He is almost 8 and I feel by now he should be able to help a little. I have tried having a chat wth him & explaining why we all need to help & look after things but it makes no difference at all.

Between the two of them there are toys, books, dvds, clothing everywhere & it is driving me nuts! I said I don't want any of their things in my bedroom but they take no notice.

When I go to some other people's houses with kids they seem so lovely & homely & organised. How do they achieve this? I can't even clean properly as there is so much stuff everywhere.

I would really welcome some helpful advice as I'm starting to feel really down about it & snapping at the children as a result. Thanks

1. Consequences for DH being such a pig

2. Reward chart for kids

3. Get rid of stuff - massively

4. Routines

5. DH must get on board! So rude of him.

No wonder you are down.

Make it part of routine, pull them up on it every single time and don't make it "tidying" just habit
So instead of telling the kids to get dressed I say "ok go and get dressed and put your Pj's in the washing basket" just make it part of the job and it will eventually be habit

Oh an make sure there is a place for everything
So you can say "put the cars in the cars box now" instead of just putting things away, that's a bit vague for kids so maybe they don't actually know how to tidy?

I find forcing a tidy up just before a meal is a good incentive. My twins are 2.5 and know they have to tidy up. Also better to have a couple of smaller rounds of sorting throughout the day than leaving it all til nearly bedtime when tempers are frayed. That means not too many different toys out at the same time (I am not a total nazi and the duplo and cars and teddies all play together regularly but eg puzzles are strictly one in/one out).

Food is eaten in the kitchen at the table only other than milk and a small snack before bedtime.

Mine are still small though so am aware that these strategies may not work on an 8yo!

You need to sort your stuff out first I'd say - the kids will generally follow your lead. I've taught DS to put his shoes off as he comes in the door, but i've noticed if i leave mine out, he will too!

I find acting like a (kind) sergeant major (24/7) helps. Xx

Woowoo- where does she say anything about Her husband being a rude pig?! She is talking about a 7 year old boy!!

Nothing to add apart from lots of sympathy and definitely watching with interest as I need to sort out our house and lives!!

Thank you for the replies & suggestions. To be fair DH is pretty good at certain things when he is here, mainly tidying up kitchen before bed & keeping the endless washing piles going through. But he's much more laid back about making the children tidy up after themselves which is fine for him as he is out at work alot of the time.

I have tried setting rules like food & drink only at the table & then they 'forget' & end up back on the sofa again. I think I'm going to start confiscating things that don't get put away at the end of the day. I am sick of asking my son the same things, I am even boring myself with my nagging but I just can't seem to make things register with him.

It would definitley help if I could get rid of more stuff (and stop bringing more in!!) but I'm not good at deciding what should go. I find it hard to get rid of perfectly good toys, books, games even if they don't use them 'just in case' they want them at a later date or because we spent good money on them. How do other people decide on what to get rid of and how do you know when a 3 year old has 'grown out' of certain things.
Really our house is full of too much stuff that we don't have storage for.

Earlier I couldn't find a birthday card or present I needed for this afternoon. Eventually found after lots of stress, & were then late as it delayed me getting the children ready etc.
I am upset that I am spending so much time trying to sort out & tidy that I don't even play as much as I would like with my children.

jemster- as I'm in the same boat, I've rejoined the kondo thread over on housekeeping. Maybe you should take a look? The Marie kondo method of decluttering.

Thanks Zippidy I have read quite a bit of the Kondo thread but I didn't find it really helped me tackle the toys chaos. Also I need help getting other people to help me keep things in order once I've organised it all.
We have been decorating dd's bedroom so I thought I'd try & be ruthless & get rid of some soft toys. Today she found the bag of them in my room decided she wanted to play with them all downstairs, nightmare!!

Mine are 4 and 2. Like earlier poster I find it helps for things to have a place, so I can ask DS to tidy cars and he knows where they go. Smaller things go in metal buckets which sit on a shelf so are easy to chuck stuff into. DS can't watch TV till he tides up room, I'll tell him which bit to tidy and I'll do the rest. Because it's the rule and it always has been he doesn't fight it. If he doesn't want to tidy, fine,no TV. Currently bed is being made each morning by him, including PJ'S on his bed (not the floor) with a trip to legoland as the reward. We are going anyway but he doesn't know that and this will get him in the habit. I definitely do the lions share of tidying but because the kids each do a little bit it only takes me 5 min to finish up when they go to bed.

I read the Kondo book in the end, much quicker than reading through the threads and it made sense faster, 4 days after starting the book loads and loads of stuff had gone, non of it missed.

It's like living in a different house, I can actually find things I need. The DCs play with more even though they have less, in fact we've bought some more exciting toys that we didn't think we had the room for.

I make it easy for them, so laundry bins in the bath room. I am ruthless about the food only at the table, if they leave wrappers lying around and won't put them in the bin then I say fine, I won't buy those for you again (they know I mean it, so it works). Same for throws and cushions, if the won't treat them properly I take them away.

Downstairs is toy free a lot of the time, toys are kept upstairs and mostly played with up stairs too.

Watching with interest....I have the same problem, dd 4 is great at the routine stuff, putting shoes away, clothing in washing basket etc, but the toys.... Oh dear god the toys...so much crap, spread everywhere in her bedroom. We have a 5 month old ds and they will need to share a room eventually, but I just cannot face the picking my way across the obstacles in the middle of the night to feed him if they are in together!

I am ruthless though about toys, she sat with me and we put away toys that were too young for her for ds to use, and issue gets anything new we give a toy to the charity shop, she decides what. Any home made, broken or pound shop crap goes in the bin eventually and she's told it's gone for mending. I have realised how little she needs to play.with though, we've been away camping for two weeks, with only two small bags of toys she's been totally engrossed. currently she is playing with an ear plug, with a face drawn on it, stuck on a stick. Ear plug man...