How to get an almost 4 year old
Moms View Message Board: Parenting Discussion: Archive July-December 2004:
How to get an almost 4 year old
to clean up her toys??? Alissa loves to play with her Barbie's she was always good at cleaning them up until this week. She pulls them out now and will not clean them up. She has me crazy with it. I am thinking I am just going to take them off her next time she makes a mess.
Any ideas or suggestions???
TIA
LOL Kath, we need to place our Alyssa/Alissa together in one giant room.
I can take all of Alyssa's toys away and she still finds 'stuff' to get into. Today it was typing paper
Well my 5 yr old daughter does the same thing..And we still havent learned how to make her clean the mess up.. I guess its partly my fault for buying her so many ...They look so cute and pretty on the shelf of the store, until you bring them home and there is a big mess of them in the middle of the floor LOL
Oh, it's a never ending saga, isn't it? LOL!
What works for us is saying "You can feel free to keep whatever toys you pick up." Then, don't nag or keep mentioning it. When she doesn't pick them up, get a garbage bag and pick them up yourself and put them away somewhere. I also don't tell DD I am doing it. I just quietly do it. Our DD has to do chores to earn them back, like dusting, putting towels away in linen closet, helping unload the dishwasher, dusting.
Just keep doing it and eventually she'll surprise you and pick them up because she doesn't want them taken away.
Sometimes, we'll play "beat the clock" and set a timer and run around and pick up all the toys. This works well with cleaning up her room. Good luck! I hope you find something that works. It's frusterating, I know.
We do "beat the clock" as well. Sometimes, however, when there is too much in my dd's room to clean, I set the timer for different things. Like: making the bed, putting all doll clothes in the box, putting books on bookshelf, etc. I found by doing the whole room at one time what so overwhelming to her.
We also do marble jars. I use a small candle holder (to big of one takes too long to fill up and is less impacting I have found)When they do ANYTHING on their own that is praisworthy, they get a marble in their "jar". They love choosing a pretty marble too. When it is filled up, they can choose anything in the dollar store that the want!!
The other day my 3 yr old came to me and said, "mommy mommy, I just put all my block together in a pile so you can pick them up!" I said, "thank you, you earned a marble for your jar!" He ran away giggling!
Good luck!
THE HEADLESS BARBIES (A True Story)
Last year, when my daughter had just turned six, she got several Barbies and similar small dolls and clothes and accessories, etc. for her birthday.
I kept telling her and telling her to "clean up her room!" As I stepped on small plastic Barbie shoes (ouch!) or found Barbie hair and small Barbie accessories all over the house.
Finally, after about two weeks of this, I walked into my daughter's room to find a "gory" scene:
All of her Barbie and Barbie type dolls (around 12, I guess) were fully dressed, with shoes and accessories, laying across in a row with NO HEADS!
The heads were neatly packed into a shoe box beside the bodies. It looked like some type of grisly "Barbie" massacre.
Fearing that I had scarred my daughter for life bugging her to "clean up her Barbies" I stayed calm, took a deep breath and asked,(calmly)
Mommy: "Sweetie, why did you take off the Barbie's heads and put them all in the box???!!!"
(I was hoping she would not give me an "Exorcist, Linda Blair head roll" )and say in a deep voice: "Because you kept bugging me in clean them up!!"
My Daughter: "Look,Mommy!" eyes shining, "Now I don't have to dress and undress my Barbies anymore, the clothes all stay on their bodies, all the bodies have the outfits on and I JUST SWITCH THE HEADS!" She began to demonstrate, "See? If I want the Cinderella dress on the Wedding Barbie, I don't have to change the clothes, I just take Wedding Barbie's head and stick it on Cinderella Barbie's body!"
I smiled weakly: "What great problem solving, sweetie!" And it was. It doesn't bug HER. Drives me nuts, though. For some reason it gives me the creeps to see all those headless dolls in her Barbie box (reminds me of that kid on The Addams Family with the headless doll)! LOL Oh well, Maybe she'll grow up to be a SURGEON! AJ
Oh my goodness, Audrey!! That is hilarious!!!
Audrey ROFLMBO...that to cute.
Alissa had a better day today since last night when I was at work DH got a garbage bag and filled it with all the toys that were all over the living room, and told Alissa when she learned how to clean up she would get them back. So today she did clean up what she played with...but we are going to give it a couple of days to see what happens. Then "maybe" she can have her big mess of Barbie's back.
The joys of parenthood!!
What a great idea your dd had, Audrey!
My son's favorite carry-around toy as a toddler was a naked, headless Barbie. he carried it everywhere for about 6 months!
OMG Audrey, that is a very clever little girl you have there! I too would be freaked out by Barbie heads in a shoe box.
My dd should do that, her db already did the honor of pulling off all Barbie's heads!
My mom did what Eve mentioned, told me she would throw the Barbies out if I didn't clean up. She bagged them up and put them in the attic one day... I started cleaning up after that!!
When my son was 2 and 3 he loved to play with little animals and pooh figures. He loved to line them up. I became scared one day when he had lined them all up (about 20 of them)in a straight line turned around with their backs to us. It looked like a toy firing line! We couldn't figure out why he continued to do this. Still haven't figured it out.
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