Have I punished her too much? Or not enough? Dh says I go ott.

[Rhubarb]

But dd is just so sloppy! She leaves pens without their lids on our settee and on her bed, staining them. She and her cousin yesterday managed to get glitter all over her bed and covers. She makes things out of paper and does it on the settee, covering it in bits of paper, sellotape and glue.

I mean I know our furniture is hardly worth much and is a bit scruffy, but I do make an effort to make it presentable (I washed the throw on the settee a few days ago) and she just thinks it's fine to treat it like a huge playmat.

Today I asked her to tidy her room, twice. When I went up to put new sheets on the bed after stripping the glitter covered ones I found beads all over the mattress, pens out everywhere, and just a complete mess - I had to stand on things to get to her bed. So I've cancelled a trip to see her cousins for tomorrow, I've banned all use of pens except on a table and I made her clear it all up before she even got into bed. I also gave her a very stern lecture. But it does mean that she's gone to bed upset that plans for tomorrow are cancelled (we can go on Thurs if she's good tomorrow) and upset that I've had to tell her off just before bedtime.

dh seems to think it's all part of being a kid. But her sloppiness has also affected her schoolwork and she's been in trouble for not bothering to write her homework in her book and not pasting her spellings in the right place or dating anything.

So how can I get her out of this sloppiness?

I don't think postponing the trip is too serious a punishment. I would probably do the same, there are only soooooo many times you can tell a dc, to pick up, tidy away, especiallly if she knows she's not allowed pens upstairs. I think you said your dd was 7.5, my ds is 8 and I have the same thing but with the bloody lego. I really think they're getting to age now when they should take more responsibility for their stuff. You might have cracked it with (temporarily) missing a day out Rhubarb

I understand about the topless pens and keeping the living room tidy . . .but just to put an alternative point of view - does it matter if her room's a mess?

7 is still very little - is her school very strict?

Can you take charge of all her craft stuff, pens, pencils etc? I do this with DD (she is only 5). She gets the pens etc whenever she wants them but I give them to her and she sits at the table. DD is very messy and I know if I didn't do this I would also be tearing my hair out with stained furniture and bedding etc.

I think I wouldn't have cancelled the trip but that is just me, I also wouldn't let DD go to bed upset but as I said DD is only 5 I might have changed my mind by the time she is 7!!!!!

When we used to do craft etc we always sat at the dining table and mum was around sort of supevising/watching. Everything stayed on the table because we needed it within reach, so if it got dropped we picked it up. We never questioned it.

Where can she do this sort of thing, if not a desk or the sofa - she just needs some guidelines and a recognised area to do stuff imo. It is a normal part of being little.

...can't find a reference to an 'allowed' place for doing crafty stuff, in the thread Rhuby.
It would be way easier on you if it only happened in one place!

We don't have glitter in this house and any craft stuff is kept in a box in the kitchen and thats where they are allowed to have it.

We used to have glitter until they emptied it all over the kitchen floor and when I went to hoover it up the hoover blew up and I had to sweep it all up, whilst carrying the swept up glitter through the living room to the outside bin I dropped it all over the carpet

Hence NO GLITTER

I always throw unlidded pens and when tidying their room they have 1/2 hour to get it spotless or I go in with a black bag.

Yes, I agree with FA. It's helpful to have a specified place where crafts are allowed to take place. And 7 is not too young for her to participate in re-making her own bed. Or maybe you should ahve left it all for her to sleep in. I also don't allow glitter, playdo or crayons (except those new pencil type) into my house. They are just too messy and they get plenty of exposure to those articles at school (where someone else has to deal with the mess )

We use the kitchen table with wipeable tablecloth for craft activities. Easy to sweep everything up afterwards.
Agree that it's best to have a particular place for messy craft.
Children love making things and sometimes it would seem the messier the better.
It's also easier to help them clear up if it's all in one place.
I think telling her that the trip was cancelled because of her (instead of because you have jobs to do) was a bit ott.
Get her to tidy up with you. Eventually she might do it by herself.
And I think that your dh is right. It is part of being a kid (for some). Doesn't mean she shouldn't be shown how to clear up after herself.

Just to state the obvious but kids need to be taught how to tidy up and I presume that you have but think how it feels to us to be faced with a room in chaos and not knowing where to start - and we're adults. I think breaking things down in to manageable tasks and limiting where the mess can occur in the first place might be helpful?

I understand your frustration but I think cancelling the trip was ott. what punishment will you have left to give if she does something really naughty [for want of a better word]

OTT she is only 7.Let her be a child and help her with these chores until she gets the hang of it.

I'd worry about the cost of the stuff so the Bin and Hoover solution wouldn't work for me. I'd want to pick up every unused unscrap! (I would have been overjoyed to have a fraction of the stuff ds has as a kid.)
Our craft boxes are kept separately to everything else and ds has to ask me to get them down for him. That way I find it easier to agree where his projects get done and what he needs to do them. Also when he's done I insist we tidy it away there and then before he can get anything else out. Would this work for you?

My dcs have been tidying up since before they started school - they're actually quite good at it now, so 7 is plenty old enough. Can you link it to pocket money? I also had a no glitter and no felt tips rule when they were younger, crayons and coloured pencils only. And yes anything on the floor after a tidying session goes in the bin.

My dds are sloppy because I'm sloppy. Can't blame them really.

My sister would consider a pen top left off a capital offence, but I can't muster up the energy to police that the way she does.

We don't have pens upstairs at all or glitter or glue - they do stuff like that in the conservatory as bought a cheap table and chairs specifically for the DCs to wreck and not wreck the carpets in their rooms or the sofa or anything else.

Everything is done on that table, colouring, glitter, sticking, gluing and play doh - at 7 you can't expect them to be neat enough to do stuff like that in their bedroom!

I think it's very hard to change natural ingrained sloppiness. I have two nearly 7 year old DDs and one is just like your DD. She is craft mad, it's the only thing she really enjoys doing but boy does she make an awful mess. Her sister also enjoys doing this sort of thing but she seems to be naturally tidy and orderly.

As others have said, I try and limit it to one area and then stand over her whilst she 'clears' it up, usually very badly.

She got a load of that awful magic maize stuff for Christmas which I thought I had hidden well at the top of her wardrobe - she found it Saturday and her room was covered in the bloody sticky stuff, with random tupperware tubs of water everywhere, half spilt . When I exploded at her she genuinely didn't seem to understand why I was so cross.

In answer to your question about whether you can desloppify someone - I wish I could desloppify myself.

My mother used to get very angry about my sloppiness. Not messiness at home so much, but messy school work like you say, filthy school bags, losing things etc. She used to scream and yell for ages and it was really awful. But it didn't do anything. I'm still very messy. Don't know why I can't establish neat habits...

Sandyballs That post made me feel so much better!

tryingtoleave - I try to pretend that it's my creative personality

Agree - no glitter, pens with lids off go in the bin, as well as anything found upstairs that should not be there. All our craft stuff is done at the table or not at all. We have wooden floors so I can just sweep up the mess and bin it later. I think you have a right to enforce the rules to minimise the mess - asking her to do everything messy in one place where she can be supervised/clean up later is not too much to ask.

sounds reasonable to me. You say the trip to the cousins can be done on Thursday so it's not like it's TOTALLY canceled - she just has to try harder to become unsloppy today.

FWIW - I expect the same (tidying things away, lids on pens, etc etc) from DS1 (7) and DS2 (4)

bad news for you Rhubarb - you can't unsloppify anyone you can just teach them to keep it marginally under control.

Had the same problem with my mum - "tidy up this mess"
"what mess?" KC thinks looking around at room full of lovely stuff

I just don't see mess, I think my brain isn't programmed to recognise when something isn;t in the place it should be.

I claim that my mind is busy with more important matters...

dh has managed to deslopify me to a large extent. trick is he creates lovely little places for things to go and i now enjoy slopfree spaces and make an effort to put stuff away. i do agree with teh 'what mess?' mentality. i was tortured throughout my childhood trying rectify handwriting that looked perfectly good to me and tidy mess that i didn;t see. my mother was ridiculously messy though so she would spend large parts of the day shouting at us about mess and none of us knew what to do about it.

so in answer to op organise organise organise. create a space for your dd not as a punishment but as her lovely space where she can keep her mess (doesn't have to be big just a few nice boxes and a wee table or tray.)

I agree with others - you need to take charge of the craft stuff, not leave it where she can get it out, and impose one place where art and craft is done. I know she is not a toddler, but she is making a toddler-style mess and I think that toddler-style strategies are needed.

No you can't unsloppify a person, only try and teach them skills of organisation so that if they WANT to unsloppify as an adult, they do at least have a starting point.
And I think it is reasonable to enforce a certain level of tidiness out of consideration for others - so no craft things in inappropriate places where mess would be a real problem, and keeping communal spaces tidy.
If you want her to keep her own room tidy you are going to have to really work at it with her and create super-organised storage. Something I haven't yet achieved