Hubert refused to clean his room. After a few weeks, it was in such a state that he could no longer get to his bed, nor to the door, and he slept atop a pile of toy parts. His mother made him meals which he hoisted up in a basket from his window. After things had gotten as bad as they possibly could, up came a note from Mrs. P-W with lunch - "the circus is coming to town, and we're going to go see it! Come play with us!" Toots of horns and happy shouts and a parade of kids (led by Mrs. P-W of course) came trotting past outside the house - oh, but Hubert couldn't even get to the door! Galvanized, he put away his toys in a furious hurry, got out of his room and caught up with his friends.
While it wasn't nearly as bad as Huberts room, it was still pretty bad. I talked with him about cleaning his room.
me, "Nic, you have to clean your room."
Nic, "But it...will...take...for...ev..er." (if you know nic, you know he takes a breath in between syllables when he's really mad)
me, "Santa doesn't give presents to little boys with messy rooms. Don't you want santa to visit and leave you toys?"
Nic shruggs and shakes his head! (HE'S ALREADY GIVEN UP!!)
It took me about 4 days of no Wii or Computer games (he can live without santa visiting but shut down the computer use and we have motivation). I also spent a few sessions helping him in his room to finally get it accomplished. I had to get creative too because if it wasn't fun or "his idea" he wasn't going to do any work. Quite a few times I went up there and started to "help" him only to leave after 5 minutes of doing the work all by myself. So, we played a few games... such as 10 minute pick up, and I spy. I actually said, "can you find" and then named the object.
me, "Can you find the red train bridge and put it in the yellow toy box" etc etc etc.
In the end he actually suggested that we go clean his room and it ended up working the best by me grabbing an object and handing it to him to put away. It probably took us two hours or so once we focused and got down to cleaning.
He actually went up there of his own volition today and did some maintenance cleaning on it which is nice. Now if I can get that same urge and clean the house so that when I have company come to the door I don't have to think twice about inviting them in.
2 comments:
oh, the horrible memories of having to clean the one foot deep mess on the floor. I still have nightmares!
Erin,
Don't worry too bad about nic not cleaning his room all the time, I NEVER cleaned my room growing up. but now that I have my own house, it's sparkling until dinner or when steven walks in the door, Although I am having trouble getting the motivation to organize the babies room, I desparatly need to buy a dresser for Steven and I and a book shelf for Kamdon/Camden's room. *have to put both spellings as for Steven now likes the way mom spells it. The place is slowly getting really organized now that the boxes are going outside, and I am sorting through the "skinny" clothes (steven and I both have gained weight since I've gotten pregnant, he's gained 28 pounds and
I've gained 44. had to get rid of the skinny clothes because our fat clothes needed some hangers.). It's hard when you move from a 1700 sq foot 3-bedroom apartment to a 850 sq foot 2 bedroom and where the bathroom is the largest room (which I love btw) but there is NO WHERE to put things so right now actually Steven is putting some shelves in the kitchen up so I have somewhere to put my pots and pans. my little breakfast bar has become a desk for the computer, and our living room you have to climb over gianormous couches to get anywhere. It's funny how our bedroom is mainly taken up by our bed (king size) and then babies room is a storage room kinda for all the stuff we haven't gone through and we need to put shelves in the storage room outside, it's too tiny and Steve's bike takes up most of it. Main thing is, Don't worry. "nic" will get tidier if you just leave his room alone and not let him play on the wii or computer til' it's clean. GOOD JOB! lol
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