This morning WWIII erupted in my house..of course over something small and relatively inconsequential...But this momma had enough.
It all came down to one little girl (who is completely capable of cleaning her room quickly and effectively when Daddy asks her) absolutely refusing to clean her room when her Momma asked.
A couple of hours later, after reminding and prodding and all other sorts of coercion, I laid down the ultimate ultimatum.
"Clean up this room now or I will take whatever toys are left on the floor out of here!"
To which Eliana responded, "Ok - I don't need any toys."
Shoot...now what.
I sent her to time out while I came up with a plan and this is the result.
Notice the room is clean? Yup I did that...I know I didn't 'win' this time but let me let you in on my plan....
*Step one - clean room while little girl is on a time out.
*Step two - purge all non-essential type toys (big blue bag on its way to the thrift store)
*Step three - saran wrap ALL other toys into the toy box under strict instructions that there will be all sorts of trouble for the person who dares to cross the not quite invisible barrier of cleanliness.
*Step four - New rule in home - All Eliana's toys are mine. Yup mine (I now have quite the collection of polly pockets)
*Step five - Eliana doesn't know this yet but as she completes various cleaning tasks she will be able to earn her toys back.
I'll let ya know how it goes.
7 comments:
you're brilliant!! let us know how it turns out;)
I LOVE IT! let us in on the outcome!.... WE will be VICTORIOUS!! hehehe
Wow! And I thought WWIII only happened in our house! Good on you for taking action.
this is awesome. Just the other day a mom with now teenage children told me that whenever her kids told her they were bored she would grab a garbage bag and throw all their toys into it. brilliant!
When I have children I will be going to you for your brilliance all the time.
Lol, this totally happened in our house too one day, I put their toys in a garbage bag in another room though and taped their closet door shut with packing tape. The only thing that backfired a bit was that it happened right before Cheyanne's first day of school and she told her teacher all about it on the first day while I sat there blushing, lol. It was embarassing! I really like the saran wrap part though, it is tormenting to look at her toys and not be able to touch them lol. Fixes the out of site out of mind thing, lol. Good work, I would like to know how the earning the toys back goes :)
I LOVE this and will definitely stash it away in my brain for the future. Our daughter is only 3 and we're just starting the wars, but I'm sure there'll be reason to pull out the earning it back trick.
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