I've Taken All Toys from 7Yr and 5Yr

Hi, I was a single mom of 4 for a long time. When my kids got to the point they would not put there toy's away. I did the same thing you did, but I put them in a big box. They started out with one toy at a time. When they were done playing with one and wanted another the had to trade me for the toys. Now I have a 3 yr old and we are starting the pick up game. He brings me the toy to put in the box. He picks up the toys at daycare. I will probably have to do the same thing with him as I did with my other children.
Good luck
G.

A little about me Mom to 1 Step-daughter 25, son and daughter 24, son 22, son 21, sone 3, and 3 1/2 granddaughters
and a wonderful supportive husband (married 1 1/2 yrs)

I have found that my boys do best when I help without helping. Sounds stupid, I know. I can't send them in to clean their room because they will sit there and play, or they will fight. So... I tell them... go get me 3 trucks and come show them to me! The race is on... they each bring me 3 trucks, to which I tell them... put them away and get me 4 books... and so on and so on. It takes them about 10 min. to clean their room and it's fun to them... they have my attention, it's a game, and I'm not doing it for them!
I think an important question here is one that only you can answer... can your children grasp the concept that their toys are gone because of something they chose not to do when they were told to? And does it bother them that they are gone? I could take every toy out of my boys room and they wouldn't care... but take away the tv and it MIGHT get through to them, for a day or two and then it would be gone. They are both 7. My 11 year old has not watched an ounce of tv in over 4 weeks... all she has to do is get her homework and chores done daily with no talking back to me... she has the chance EVERY DAY to earn back what she has lost and every day, another day is added, for a month now. The concept just isn't there for her, so we are up to adding new things... we spend Sundays at our pastors house with other families watching family movies, playing games, etc... she now has to read while we are there... ALL DAY. She's getting closer to the concept I think!
I personally, don't think I would take away the toys... I don't feel that this teaches them as much as the structure of "now is play time... then it's clean up time"... while it's good to let them go play in their room whenever they want of course, I would try setting a clean up time before bed, before dinner, whatever works... make it a routine and stick to it... give them a 5 min. warning... a 3 min. warning... and then a "ok, it's time to clean up, I'm on my way in to help".

Hi F.,

Was there a reason you stopped singing with them and making it fun? If you can pinpoint when and maybe why, then you can begin to understand behavior patterns. I agree with Marda who mentioned being positive and not angry is important. The children are old enough to understand how to help mommy. However, there is a HUGE difference between disciplining a child and punishing a child. Discipline is done to show children that parents have their best interest in mind at all times and there is a lesson or moral to each way we discipline. Punishment is done when parents become so frustrated or exasperated that they feel a loss of control and don't know what to do. Usually the punishments hurts the child or causes the child to feel anger and/or agression. I would start with giving the kids the toys back after explaining that you need your precious children to be great helpers for mommy. Tell them you know that they can do it and positively reinforce how much you love your precious angels. I can say from experience that usuing the music to help is a great idea. We sing when we clean up too. Our daughter now cleans up whenever she is done. We pick her up, hug her and tell her great job. :) It makes both me and my husband grin from ear to ear. Hope this advice helps you. :)

Blessings,

K

At heir ages, it may be a little too early for them to understand. They need HABIT. My suggestion, and what i do, is make a time every day where they have to pick up thier toys in their room (I choose when I am making dinner, it gives me a half hour to work with them.) I have to constantly remind them of what they are doing, tell them, calmly, to go back in the room and pick up. We also have a limit on tv and X-BOX, so if they miss a day of cleaning or there are too many issues, I will go clean up the room, but they loose the tv and X-BOX time because they cannot watch tv or play the X-BOX untill cleaning time is over. It works for me.....hope it works for you.

Another suggestion that works well for a friend of mine is she just tells them to clean, if they do not keep up with it, she allows the room to get beyond messy, they soon dispise this action because they cannot find toys, clothes or anything they need. It took her two days and she has not had a problem since.

I personally think it's a great tool. I use it with my 3 year old. He has lost his toys on a couple occaisions already. I know he knows how to clean up because when he decides he wants to he'll sing the clean up song and clean his room, then once he's done he comes to me or his daddy with joy and smiles and says "I did it, can you come check", which we do and if there are any lingering things, we help him get those picked up. The only thing we dont take from him when he doesnt want to listen and clean his room are his books. We never take away the books because that is what helps his mind grow, his imagination develop, and curiosity. Right now, he has a few toys, and every day he is good and listens to mommy when she says clean your room, he gets to pick one of his toys that he wants back, if he goes to time out even once during the day he doesnt get the toy. We have found that he is more anxious to keep his room cleaned up and listen more attentively knowing he will get his stuff back, he seems to appreciate it a bit more too. Good luck...

I just wanted to drop a word of encouragment. It is harder to do the right thing in parenting then take the easy road. Just thought I would let you know that while my children are still very little, my family was very poor growing up and we didnt have many toys at all, and most of the few we had were shared with my 6 siblings. We didnt suffer. We were very creative in entertaining ourselves and could "make" toys out of blankets, utensils, couch cousions, paper and crayons, whatever. I think it really helped as now I seem to be able to think of unique ways around problems that has benifited my life and impressed my past employers. Plus, if they cant keep them cleaned up at that age they must not really care. Good Job Mom! Jen

Wow I could have written this. My kids are the same age as yours (plus one younger girl) and they've lost their toys SO many times. NO it doesn't hurt them- if nothing else it teaches them to be creative with their time. My kids do a lot more reading and drawing. The majority of their toys are gone- even their favorites- and they don't even care. Shows how much they appreciate stuff...

I dont' know how to teach your kids to want to clean up. If you find the key- let me know!!! But no- I don't think taking toys they can't keep picked up is mean. My husband will walk through the house and pick up toys off the living room floor (after warning them) and throw them in the trash right in front of them.

I know that you feel guilty about taking away their toys, but good for you. My husband and I have done the same thing with our girls ages 8 and 6 and it helped. My girls now clean up when it's time to do soemthing else. They also knwo that if something gets left out they will lose it. I know that it may seem harsh, but they are old enough to learn that I am not their maid and I'm not their to clean up after them all the time. They need to clean up after themselves.

What do you mean by having their toys in order? Could your standards be too high for this age? Why did the clean up, clean up routine stop working.

One mistake that I made was to expect them to do it by themselves after a few times of my doing it with them. But then the missed the interaction. I went back to playing the pick up game with them.

Another thing that I do sometimes is to say once your toys are put away we'll put on a movie, read a book, or do something else they like to do. There is no movie but maybe music while they pick up.

We solved the in order expectation by having several boxes in the room and all the kids have to do is put the toys in the boxes so that we can see the floor.

Probably the most important thing is keeping an upbeat positive demeanor. No anger or frustration showing. Display confidence that they can do it.

One problem could be that the kids have too many toys. My daughter boxed up a whole bunch and so there are less to pick up and they still have plenty to play with.

An idea Ihaven't used is t give each child a large sack and have a race to see who can pick up the most toys.

Anything that we try we have to calmly enforce it consistently over several days or perhaps even a couple of weeks before we can see results.

This is a great way to teach them a lesson. I think it will help. Although I haven't tried this before - I may try it with my kids. As for their free time - this will teach them that they need to clean up in order to keep their toys. I wouldn't feel guilty if I were you; kids need to learn lessons in life and not everything a parent does will make them happy.

Lauren

I did the same thing, except it was with my daughter's 8 billion barbies and all their accesories. I took them away for 4 days, and after the fourth day was up, she appologized for not cleaning them up. Though we have our ups and downs when it comes to cleaning them up, I just use that experience as leverage to get her to pick them up. "Remember when mommy took all your barbies away? Do you want mommy to take them away again?" It works EVERY time!!!

F., I went thru the same stage because I was doing all the work as well and no it is not wrong you are teaching them the good old rule of the thumb responsability and that is a good thing keep doing what you are doing and when they have free time paper and crayons work good and alos cardboard boxes to cinstruct things.... greetings,P