Keeping up the organization
I decided a few weeks ago to start keeping our house clutter-free and organized and I’ve brought my family along for the ride. There was some resistance at first, then once they started seeing the results, everyone loved the idea. Now that the novelty is wearing off though, it’s starting to get more and more difficult to inspire and encourage family members to keep it up.
I don’t want to be constantly nagging everyone to clean up after themselves. That would be counter-productive. It would turn them against me. I also don’t want things to return to the way they were before. The result seems to be that slowly but surely, I’m doing more and more of the picking up after every one else. This is not so bad, since I get the satisfaction of doing it and seeing the results myself. But, I can see that soon enough the novelty will wear off for me as well, and even I will revert.
Here are my plans and hopes:
- In another few days or weeks, keeping the house clean and organized will become habit
- I will compromise. I will pick up after them half the time, and harp on them to do it themselves half the time.
I think that could just do it. How have you solved this problem?
March 26th, 2008 at 5:31 am
I find that I’m better at getting my family on board if things are easy to put away.
And if they don’t have their storage space full of stuff we don’t really need.
Also, everyone in my family is more productive if we work together.
And I threaten them. I can’t threaten DH, of course, but I can sure tell a couple of kids that if they don’t pick up everything on the floor, and put it properly away, that I’ll throw out anything I deem tossable, and take away other stuff for a long time.
I had a stretch where we were pretty “picked up” most of the time. The secret, at that time, was that the daily detritus was picked up as part of the bedtime routine.
This is a bit of a challenge for me right now, and I’m going to use your comments on your blog to motivate me.
(I tell myself, but don’t follow through on it, that ‘teaching kids to care for their home’ is as much as part of my parenting job as teaching them to brush their teeth or do their homework)
March 26th, 2008 at 6:26 am
Hey TootsNYC, what’s your url?
March 27th, 2008 at 8:35 am
Well, there’s the problem TootsNYC. Trying to figure out what’s tossable, because you know it’s going to happen and you know you have to follow through on your threats. I guess if it’s really expensive like an iPod or something, then you can just hide it away for a while.
And, good point about teaching kids to care for their home.