When kids are VERY messy. . . constant reminders abt pick up??

[tempus vernum]

I am SO tired of my kids dropping junk everywhere. Wrappers, papers, pencils, etc are always on the floor. About 2 weeks ago, I started calling them out and explaining OVER AND OVER that they can't just drop their pencil when they are done with their math. I started explaining that they have to throw away a tissue when they blow their nose.


Basically I kind of started nagging/lecturing/making a big deal of it compared to having pick up times and just saying "pick up your wrapper and pointing without comment.

I am having a family meeting tomorrow. I need ideas to add to the mix. The ideas I have.

1. Assign chips in the morning (poker chips) --25 per day. Remove a chip for every reminder to pick up their junk that they left out. At the end of the day, count the chips. However many chips they lose, they have to do minutes of chores. I feel this is natural consequences because I am taking my time to stop and tell them to pick up their junk.
2. #1 in reverse. Do not assign chips but assign colors per kid. Everytime I remind them they have to pick them up, put color chip in jar and count at end of day. Do X minutes of chores to make up for all the time I spent telling them to pick up.

That's all I have and I only came up with that when not nagging and nagging hasn't worked.

They are AWESOME at assigned chores - they clean the kitchen together, bring down laundry and do whatever I assign to them in the moment but they leave their clothes, school work, tissues, food wrappers all over the place. Makes me NUTSO!!!!! They do a great job at "15 minute clean ups" but my goal is to teach them to STOP and put things away before moving on or when they are done with something

[Chaos Coordinator]

just a thought....maybe they aren't done....i leave little piles everywhere i go, because i always intend to come back. all the rewards systems in the world aren't going to change something like that. not even having kids who come in behind me and mess up my piles and use my pen to scribble all over my work (for four years straight) has managed to deter me from leaving work piles.


trash all over the place though? pet peeve. i call it as i see it. "whose wrapper is this? someone needs to pick this up immediately. this house is not a trash can." or "do NOT just drop your wrapper on the floor. locate the nearest trash can and deposit it there. no littering, inside or out."

---------- Post added at 11:36 PM ---------- Previous post was at 11:34 PM ----------

sometimes i like to have them do a five minute challenge, where they spend five minutes scrambling to do as much as possible and are paid per piece (in chocolate chips )


my kids are only 4 and 2 so i dunno if that would be as functional in your home or not. my baby can't talk so he just gets a handful of chocolate chips, and my older one can't count very high, so that works in my favor too, plus he loves racing, and if i just tell him he was the fastest, he could keep going for a long time

[Dandelion]

I just had a mini meltdown over similar issues tonight

[tempus vernum]

Originally Posted by Chaos Coordinator

just a thought....maybe they aren't done....i leave little piles everywhere i go, because i always intend to come back. all the rewards systems in the world aren't going to change something like that. not even having kids who come in behind me and mess up my piles and use my pen to scribble all over my work (for four years straight) has managed to deter me from leaving work piles

No, it's not this - it's trash all over the place

trash all over the place though? pet peeve. i call it as i see it. "whose wrapper is this? someone needs to pick this up immediately. this house is not a trash can." or "do NOT just drop your wrapper on the floor. locate the nearest trash can and deposit it there. no littering, inside or out."

---------- Post added at 11:36 PM ---------- Previous post was at 11:34 PM ----------

sometimes i like to have them do a five minute challenge, where they spend five minutes scrambling to do as much as possible and are paid per piece (in chocolate chips )


my kids are only 4 and 2 so i dunno if that would be as functional in your home or not. my baby can't talk so he just gets a handful of chocolate chips, and my older one can't count very high, so that works in my favor too, plus he loves racing, and if i just tell him he was the fastest, he could keep going for a long time

I have done all the speaking things as you listed

The chocolate chips Hmm. . . the problem is that they can eat chocolate chips whenever they want. I am no longer controlling sugar consumption. They have unlimited access to everything in the kitchen . . . except I only allow cooking 3 times a day so that I'm not doing dishes ALL. . . DAY. . . LONG. . .

Hmm. . . wonder if I could try treats of some sort that I don't normally buy for this (5 minutes = 1 tootsie roll)

---------- Post added at 11:55 PM ---------- Previous post was at 11:54 PM ----------

Originally Posted by Dandelion

I just had a mini meltdown over similar issues tonight

I have been melting down every other day about this for weeks.

[crunchymum]

[Chaos Coordinator]

i honestly think its just a kid thing. i've seen soooo many kids just drop their trash where they are standing. i'm always a little about it.

i think my mom's solution was to put a trash can in every room. that way there was always a trash can close enough by that it wasn't a big deal to just lean over the arm of the couch and drop it in.

with my own though i'm constantly directing them where to put their trash, dishes, and dirty clothes. there is just no bloody reason to say "Hey, i'm done with this bowl and spoon, so i'm just going to *literally* drop them where i'm standing and then walk out of the room like its no biggie." that's just insane. i mean it happens here all day long. but it baffles me, and yet like i said, i've never seen a kid *not* do it. and i've worked with a ton of kids! every once in a while there will be those two or three preschoolers out of a class of 25 that enjoys throwing things away and thus sets a precedent whereby all the other children follow suit (save for one or two little boys, most likely), but for the most part, hand a kid a sucker, he will promptly open it, deposit the sugared end in his mouth, and drop the wrapper *right where he is standing* - its crazymaking, for sure.

---------- Post added at 12:12 AM ---------- Previous post was at 12:11 AM ----------

i realize my reply was a whole bunch of relating and virtually no helping sorry about that.

[tempus vernum]

Originally Posted by Chaos Coordinator

i honestly think its just a kid thing. i've seen soooo many kids just drop their trash where they are standing. i'm always a little about it.

i think my mom's solution was to put a trash can in every room. that way there was always a trash can close enough by that it wasn't a big deal to just lean over the arm of the couch and drop it in.

with my own though i'm constantly directing them where to put their trash, dishes, and dirty clothes. there is just no bloody reason to say "Hey, i'm done with this bowl and spoon, so i'm just going to *literally* drop them where i'm standing and then walk out of the room like its no biggie." that's just insane. i mean it happens here all day long. but it baffles me, and yet like i said, i've never seen a kid *not* do it. and i've worked with a ton of kids! every once in a while there will be those two or three preschoolers out of a class of 25 that enjoys throwing things away and thus sets a precedent whereby all the other children follow suit (save for one or two little boys, most likely), but for the most part, hand a kid a sucker, he will promptly open it, deposit the sugared end in his mouth, and drop the wrapper *right where he is standing* - its crazymaking, for sure.

---------- Post added at 12:12 AM ---------- Previous post was at 12:11 AM ----------

i realize my reply was a whole bunch of relating and virtually no helping sorry about that.

We have trash cans in every room. I did that a few years ago

I am gonna pull out all my hair. I actually appreciate the relating because even though I know this I think my kids must be the worse

[Soliloquy]

I'm right with you, Jodi. I absolutely know I did not do this as a child because I remember that, even as a child, that kind of disarray drove me crazy. I usually picked up after my brother. And one of my kids doesn't do it. My DH still does it, though, at age 39! (He's not as bad as the kids, though, thankfully).

Please post the results of your family meeting. The only thing I've come up with takes a lot of MY time and energy. I walk them over and supervise while they pick up their junk. And clothes lying around! My kids will go swimming in the creek and leave their underwear lying all over the deck even when they know we have guests coming over.

[tempus vernum]

Last night, while praying before bed, I realized that I cannot put a "work value" on food. In my FOO, it was always "if you do X (some sort of good behavior), you can treat yourself to ice cream (cake, dessert, etc)" so my food consumption and "treats" were a reward. Since I ended up with an eating disorder (which wasn't necessarily related), I got pretty sensitive to food issues.

So, I am thinking I will talk with them and see what I come up with. Depending on the outcome of the meeting and it's success, I'm considering assigning these things as weekly chores
1. ground patrol (pick up garbage and put away items that don't belong to a specific person)
2. horizontal surface control (garbage and dishes off horizontal areas)
3. hot spot work (put away non garbage and dishes ) - work 5 minutes side by side with mom

It would rotate between the kids. I already know how to add it to the chore rotation that I currently have (they have been rotating chores for over a year and I'm continually adding things ) .

[MamaPepper]

[tempus vernum]

Here are the 5 ideas that came up - Dh is home on a rain day so he contributed #5. We will "vote/rediscuss" at lunch.

1 - poker chip system: each child gets 25 chips in a jar. One removed for every time they have to pick up their garbage. The number of removed chips equals one minute of extra chore time
2 - chore rotation I put
3 - pay per minute for pick up of trash (like chocolate chips but $.05 per minute of work
4 - take away item if make mess (I already eliminated this in my mind but our rule is no idea is dismissed in case it brings discussion at follow up meeting
5 - each child assigned room to pick up EVERYTHING - everyone's items and trash - they rotate through the rooms (our downstairs is 3 rooms plus a bathroom so we would probably bundle the living room and bathroom into one rotation)

My dh is VERY SMART and at first I didn't like #5. Our process will be each person gets 2 votes. They can vote 2 for their favorite or vote for 2 diff things. Will update after lunch.

[cbmk4]

Originally Posted by LisaM

I'm right with you, Jodi. I absolutely know I did not do this as a child because I remember that, even as a child, that kind of disarray drove me crazy. I usually picked up after my brother. And one of my kids doesn't do it. My DH still does it, though, at age 39! (He's not as bad as the kids, though, thankfully).

Please post the results of your family meeting. The only thing I've come up with takes a lot of MY time and energy. I walk them over and supervise while they pick up their junk. And clothes lying around! My kids will go swimming in the creek and leave their underwear lying all over the deck even when they know we have guests coming over.

Same here! Dh and I are wondering how two neat humans gave birth to 3 hogs and 1 child! Seriously, today I told my almost 20 year old dd that it "blew my mind" how she could have a box of dirty dishes sitting in her room that she brought home from college 3 weeks ago!

Don't even get me started on the "drop your trash wherever you are" syndrome.

I vacillate between picking it up for them, tossing it on their bed/floor/etc as long as it's out of my sight, and having yet another meeting about it.

I am all ears to hear how your family meeting goes.

[tempus vernum]

Originally Posted by cbmk4

Same here! Dh and I are wondering how two neat humans gave birth to 3 hogs and 1 child! Seriously, today I told my almost 20 year old dd that it "blew my mind" how she could have a box of dirty dishes sitting in her room that she brought home from college 3 weeks ago!

Don't even get me started on the "drop your trash wherever you are" syndrome.

I vacillate between picking it up for them, tossing it on their bed/floor/etc as long as it's out of my sight, and having yet another meeting about it.

I am all ears to hear how your family meeting goes.

Yeah,I feel like I raised hogs but have to admit that I find myself so busy I don't put away my junk so I feel it's partially my fault.

Originally Posted by SonshineMama

5 - each child assigned room to pick up EVERYTHING - everyone's items and trash - they rotate through the rooms (our downstairs is 3 rooms plus a bathroom so we would probably bundle the living room and bathroom into one rotation)

Was the winner. No complaints. Everyone got mad at dd1 but she wisely said "I don't want to choose anything that has consequences"

[MarynMunchkins]

That's how we do it here. When everyone's at school, we clean up once a day. When they're all home, we clean twice. Everyone just goes through the house and cleans up any mess they find.

I do ignore their bedrooms except for once a week. It saves my sanity.

[GraemesMomma]

I like that solution (And I am waiting for all three of mine to be old enough to have "family meetings" like that - I mean, we can kind of do one, but not with "voting" and whatnot....)