Are you overwhelmed by the clutter? Are your children taking things out and leaving messes behind them? Do you not know where to start? I give you The Five Minute Clean Up!
What is this Five Minute Clean Up, you may ask? Let me tell you.
When my girls were small I felt overwhelmed with the mess and clutter. I did some reading, and found a solution! Because the girls were small, I knew they could not handle just being told to clean up their messes. I can’t even handle being told to clean up my messes! So, we started setting the timer for 5 minutes. They were to pick up their things until the beeper went, and then they were finished. Even though they didn’t enjoy the process, at least they knew that when that timer went off, they were done!
My girls are a bit older now, but I still use this trick with them (and me!). It seems to work well with all ages, actually. Whether you have toddlers, preteens or even for yourself, setting a timer is the key to getting the clean up done.
So, even if the living room or playroom are not perfectly picked up, the majority of it will be tidy. You can always do this more than one time a day. Maybe. Just maybe, your kids will think of it as a game, especially if there is a treat at the end. Maybe a story, or a special snack or walk.
Here. I’ll give you another tip that always works well around this place. Ask your kids to pick up 5 things each and put them away. This actually seems to work better with older kids, I’ve noticed.
The older kids seem to think it’s easier, for some reason. Maybe I’ll ask them right now why they think it’s easier. Here’s what they said.
- Cause you only have to pick up 5 things.
- In 5 minutes you can pick up about 30 things. (Apparently not a good thing!)
- 5 minute clean up is more work than picking up 5 things.
Well. Maybe I ought to ask them to pick up more than 5 things at a time? See? I’m learning a little something today, too.
I hope you are encouraged knowing that there is a way out of the mess. That your children are capable of helping. We just need to trick them into it. 😉
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