Tidy Bedrooms

I saw a tweet from @OnlyDads for someone to write a piece called “How best to tidy a child’s bedroom” which then included the line “If has top-tips for encouraging children too, then perfect :-)”

My response was snigger and say good luck finding that, but it did make me think about the frustrations I have with my children’s rooms.

When they are little there are toys on the floor that, with a bit of encouragement can be tidied away fairly easily.  As the kids grow, I expect them to be able to tidy their toys, make their beds and put their clean washing away (neatly).

I think this must be where I have been going wrong.

Here are some of the things that ALL my older kids have done at some point:

• Hidden their lunch in the back of a wardrobe / under their bed until it goes mouldy (surely it would be better to put it in a bin at school?)
• Placed their dirty washing in Toy boxes, under toys (no wonder I have so many odd socks)
• Put ALL their nicely ironed / folded clean washing back in the washing bin so they didn’t have to put it away!
• Shove ALL their clean washing into one drawer and not sort it into the correct drawer so it eventually breaks!
• Pushed all the mess of their bedroom into the wardrobe in the hope we won’t check!
• Pushed all the mess of their bedroom into a corner and covered it up
• Pushed all their mess under the bed, or bed clothes
• Hidden sweet wrappers down the back / side / under the bed and even in the duvet cover!

Now, I am the first to admit that I don’t always handle it in the correct way.  Rightly or wrongly, my reactions have been:

• To take the room apart and put everything back in the same place and then watch with despair disappointment when it is trashed within minutes
• Thrown the lot out of the bedroom window – TRUE
• Bagged everything up and hidden it in the garden shed, claiming to have taken it to the Charity shop
• Sat on a bed supervising their every move – (this does not work as try as you may you will always end up helping)
• Sarcastically introduce them to the Hoover, duster and polish and explain how to use them
• Uploaded pictures of their messy room to facebook in the hope of embarrassing them into tidying their room

If you can help the lovely OnlyDads with their article, they’d be very grateful, however if you have horror stories like mine, I would love to hear them!!