Tidying rooms

[Lanie77]

Help!!
I'm about 3 weeks from having son No.3, and I'm struggling with methods/tricks to get my two other boys (aged 6 1/2 & 3 1/2) to keep their rooms tidy. I've tried bribery, shouting, the binbag threat, competitions, races, helping alongside, etc, etc, but nothing seems to work.

On a few occasions, their rooms have got so messy that I've sat there for a whole day & sorted them out properly, but within 24 hours they look like a bomb's hit them again - I could cry!

As a parent, should I be doing a daily tidy to keep their rooms respectable, or is it reasonable of me to expect them to take some responsibility?

Any tips, advice, suggestions are gratefully received.

I always say on thread like this that I think that children's rooms are their own territory, if you don;t like looking at them keep the doors shut. You can demand your standard of tidyiness in all the other rooms of the house, but their rooms are theri rooms and they should be able to have them the way they want them. It's not worth a moment's angst.

3 1/2 sounds very young to me to be expected to keep his room tidy. My ds is almost 3 and the most I expect from him is to 'help' me pick the toys off the floor. We have a big toy box and just chuck everything in and put the lid in. Then board games and special toy sets are kept in a storage unit that we get out one at a time. Would something like this work for you?

It's a toughie for me. I ask my 3 1/2 year old to do his share, as I don't think it's fair to harass my 6yr old to tidy his room, when I do the 3yr old's.

My 6 y/o has a habit (thanks to grandma!) of making 'toy soup'. This involves taking all of his small toys (lego, beads, gormiti, mighty beanz, bakugan, playmobil, etc) and mixing them all together in any available receptacle - this often involves emptying contents of chosen receptacle onto the floor beforehand.

I bought a couple of 'curver' plastic drawers to labelled them for each type of toy, to try to make it easier to sort things back out, but sadly this doesn't help the situation.

I'm tempted to employ the 'personal territory' thing & just leave them to get on with it - but my eldest's room can become so messy that I can't even get through the door, let alone put his clean clothes in his wardrobe. It worries me in case (heaven forbid) there's a fire, and they can't get to safety.

Maybe I'm being unreasonable, but their lack of tidying skills is not merely restricted to their rooms, and tends to follow them around the house.

Argghhhh! Who'd have kids eh?

I can see your point about not wanting to just make the older one tidy up. How about literally just getting a big plastic box and telling them both everything has to be in it before bed. Even if the small toys do all get mixed up,he'll probably just tip the whole box out again the next day! There's even a chance he might learn that it's easier to keep the sets together instead of playing toy soup? Goodluck with it though...as an adult I still struggle to keep my room tidy sometimes!

Well, if there's a fire my ds's had it!

Huge toy chest in room, everything got scooped into that before bed. No toy to be left out on a bedroom floor, as standing on a piece of lego is torture

I make both my boys tidy their rooms and their playroom, they are almost 8 and almost 5.

3 1/2 is a difficult age but the huge toy chest makes it easier as no sorting required We would sometimes use a dustpan to pick up the smaller toys.