Parent to Parent
IT'S ALL IN THE MARKETING -- HOW TO SELL CLEAN-UP TIME
THE TASK: Clean Up Time
Playtime is always more fun than clean up time. Participating in both, however, are important components of child development. By having your child participate in the cleaning up of his toys, you will begin to instill in him a sense of responsibility and accomplishment.
WHAT TO DO:
- Turn cleaning up into a game. By approaching clean up as part of playtime, it will keep your child’s attention, elicit their cooperation, and hopefully, minimize the resistance and whining!
- Allot the last 10 minutes of your playtime to clean up. This way, clean up is incorporated into the available time, and you won’t feel rushed (i.e. want to quickly do the clean up yourself because it takes less time than having ‘help’) because your play time is up.
EXAMPLES:
- There are many colorful balls all over the floor. Ask your child to pick up only the blue balls and put them back in the bucket. When they are done, request the next color and so on. By breaking down the task, the job becomes less overwhelming and more doable.
- If your child responds well to make believe, create an interactive story, and incorporate the toys that need to be cleaned up. “ Once upon a time in the Kingdom of Toys, all the balls went for a picnic. When it was time to go home, they had lost their way. Can you please help the balls get home? Find all of the blue balls and bring them back to the kingdom.”
- With older children, mix in math or spelling. Ask them to count the items and put X away, and then figure out how many are left. See if they can pick up all the toys that start with the letter ‘B’.
REALITY CHECK:
Depending on the age of the child and the extent of the mess, your child will have the focus and attention span for only a percentage of the whole clean up job. That’s ok. Be sure that your expectations are realistic based on these factors. Again, the objective of having young children participate in cleaning up is to begin to instill a sense of responsibility for their things, and to give them a sense of accomplishment when they have completed their part, not to become the hired help! To make clean up easier over all, if possible, clean up as you go through playtime. Before all the costumes come out, the game that you’re done with goes away. If your child is particularly tired (or if you are! ;), have them just pick up one toy for every birthday they’ve had. It’s a start, and a good one at that!
Contributed by Ariel Glassman
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Modified June 19, 2007 | Maintained by Debbie Dorcus
