A Tornado Blew thru his Playroom

Although your son is old enough to help clean, I wouldn't expect him to do it all his own. While it is true that he is not a baby anymore, he still is a very young child. Children this age are little copycats, they also are huge investors in anythings that gets your attention. So, I would try to put a little effort into not letting him know that the mess gets to you. Something I do with my 3 year old is walk into the room, see the mess and start in my sing songy mommy voice 'Oh wow Patsy! What a mess! Can you help me clean it up?' I very deliberate put a toy in the bin 'Yay mommy! Can you do that?' I wait to see if she does it, if she doesn't do it right away I laugh and say 'Oh, well Patsy knows how to take them out of the box, but doesn't know how to put them away?' I put another toy in the bin 'Yay mommy!' Usually by this time she is a little interested in just what the big deal is, and she will put a toy away. 'Yay Patsy!' Then we clap and dance around for a little bit and then I say 'Who do you think can it the fastest?' And then she darts around trying to put them in and I pick up the toys nearest to me to put them away. When the room is all clean I jump around some more 'Yay Patsy wins! Patsy's a big girl!' We have to run through this routine a lot. And usually my 6 year old wants to join in on all the fun so I have to praise her too. Haha. My 6 year old is pretty much to the point that she will come to me and say 'Mommy, I have a surprise for you.' So, I go and look and she will have her room cleaned. It's not perfect, but I don't demand perfection from my kids, just their personal best. I jump around and hug her and kiss her and thank her for doing such a wonderful job as a gift to me. You and I would often think that this is just something our children should do because it is the right thing to do, but children tend to put a lot of emphisis on rewards. We tried the candy reward system in our house for awhile, but that did not work out. My oldest would pick up one toy at a time and demand her candy for each one. Haha. So, I use praise, they really want to do the best job they can as they get older because they want to impress the socks off of you! Even teenagers are like that sometimes. My 14 and 18 year old sisters will rush to clean my mom's house before she gets off work in the evenings to see her surprised and pleased face when she walks in the door! And I heard that my grandma even gets my grandpa to clean up her house while she is gone useing a similer meathod. Praise really works well with everyone I guess, I think since most of us didn't really grow up with this it's hard to think that this might be all it takes, but I really do stand by my methods!

Yes, he's old enough to start helping clean up. I have two children one who's 6 now, and an 18 month old daughter. Both have learned from an early age that clean up is something they have to do. With my 18 month old, we make it into a game, and sing a song... Clean up, Clean up, Everybody everywhere, clean up, clean up, Everybody do their share, and she loves it. That song come from my son's 4k class. Though she sometimes don't get it all, she get's some of it and she is learning. Try making it a daily thing, at a certain time so he'll be come use to it and part of his daily routine, that way it's not a big deal to him when you tell him it's time to clean up.

go to a store that will let get bins that can stack or whatnot; what about baskets? anyways, when my girls were little we used to have a 5 minute tidy. we actually set a timer (or played a song) that way its not too overwhelming. another thing we used to do was when a toy comes out, a toy goes away.

My daughter will be 3 in July and she purposely waits for her brothers to clean and organize the toys in the play room they all share, then she sneaks in there and destroys everything she can reach. I solved this by putting all of her toys in her room. Now if she wants to play with them the mess is where she sleeps and she has a fit if one block is out of place while it is in her room. I don't have to force her to clean it up because she does it all by herself. But I can't stop her from destroying the play room even though her toys aren't in there. When I made her clean up the mess she made in the play room she screamed and cried and through things at me but eventually it all got cleaned up and now when she goes in there it is just to torment her brothers while they are trying to build something. I don't think you were too hard on your son. He is almost ready for preschool where he will be expected to pick up after himself and put things away. Better he get used to it and throw his fits at home then in a school environment.

It is not unreasonable for you to expect your three year old to pick up after himself, but you have to give him an environment where he is capable of picking up after himself. Take out a few toys, and put them in labeled bins with pictures, he might not be reading yet, but if he knows where the toys go, he will have an easier time of picking up. Also, how many picture books does he have? Sometimes less is more. Keep these to a minimum that he is allowed to have out. Pack some of these toys away and rotate them like you do your wardrobe...you don't wear summer clothes in the winter, you pack them away. Don't get rid of the toys, just pack them away and switch the toys out occasionally. When you switch toys out, he will be ecstatic when you bring them back...it will be like getting a new toy. Also, make a game of cleaning his room....go in and start helping him, showing him where they go, pretty soon he will be able to accomplish the task of cleaning his room by himself (with the exception of making his bed, which he'll probably need help with) I hope this advice works for you. Good luck.

When I was little my babysitter used to alternate toys every few weeks or so. Not only to keep us from having a ton of toys out but also to make it seem like "new" toys. She would keep all the toys in bins and label them. Then store the ones we weren't using that week in the garage or spare room. It was a space saver in the sense we had more room to play with th toys we had, and a few toys are alot easier to clean up than a few bins worth of them.