I am so tired of living in this mess. I am ready to toss everything and start over.
It seems like any amount of decluttering I do is undone by my boys. I think Thursday I will have Marty take them to the birthday party and I will stay here and have at their rooms. Ugh.
I am trying to get a system for chores in place. Right now each kid has a job they are responsible for making sure is done for the whole week. As it stands now they aren't getting done unless I nag them. I really don't want to spend my life nagging other people to do things they should know enough to do on their own. It really makes me angry to have to constantly remind them to clean the bathroom or wash the dishes. Seriously... How hard is it? You see something on the floor, pick it up. You just ate a meal and you know it is your job to do dishes. Hummm... What should happen next?
1 comment:
My wife says one of the things that seems to help best is to wait until it is time to go some where fun, and say we'll be able to leave when the back porch is cleaned up. The kids are real motivated then.
And over the last two years we have thrown away a ton of stuff. Clutter seems to reproduce, and you have to fight to get rid of it. More stuff makes it harder to keep the house clean. Currently three of our four bedrooms are pretty clean, and the living room, kitchen, and back porch are pretty decent. Our next big job is to purge the garage.
You shouldn't be cleaning their rooms. They should be cleaning their rooms, and if they need help and motivation, then you can direct. Once someone said that mothers are not to be servants to the family, but to direct the children on keeping the house clean. Our daughters do all the dishes and laundry, and they take care of their own breakfast.
If your sons have trouble keeping their rooms at some minimum level of order, not Martha Stewart's perfect level, but a reasonable level, you probably should take a bunch of stuff out of their rooms. When they can keep their bed made and clothes in the closet, then they have have their books, toys, or whatever.
My wife says that she really likes:
http://www.FlyLady.net
Part of the approach is to build routines, start with one routine, work on it, and then move on to the next routine. For example the first routine we started with was to always have the kichten sink clean at the end of the day.
Good luck.
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