Image Courtesy of EvelynGiggles via Flickr.I meant to link to this post by the Minnesota Matron last week, on the subject of clutter-prone family members, and then didn’t get to any links at all. It hit so close to home for me it wasn’t funny … anyone else have a case of Incurable Clutter Brain Suck?! You know, when the more cluttered the house gets the less you can think … and the less it seems to bother anyone else in the house, let alone inspire them to pick anything up and put it away! Go read about her experiment, and the followup results, and let me know how you handle clutter.
Are you ok with clutter and just step over stuff? Clean it up and sigh every time? Have somehow trained your kids to tidy up after themselves? At 8 and 4, my boys don’t have much desire to do it for themselves, but I force it fairly often. I find it works to make a big pile of what needs to be put away, and then give them a time limit or reward at the end of the work. If I just tell them to “clean up,” we rapidly discover that their definition of what needs to be put away is vastly different than mine. At this age, a big pile works.
Any tips? Words of wisdom? Sympathy?!
Happy Monday!