Clean up your ROOM!

Oh my gosh... the words still ring in my ears. Clean your room! Blurg... my room was notoriously shocking. My cupboard had a serious case of bulimia and continually threw out all its contents, my floor was carpet so I remembered vaguely.... and to top it off, I was a collector.  And never chucked anything out ( still a big thing for me!).
I have now got a bad case of de ja vu as now my three children own the messiest rooms ever. Jumeirah is not too bad, just collects random things and keeps them all through her bedroom, but the other two are just ridiculous in getting out everything they own and then walking away from it.
I cant count the number of times Ive trod on lego in the middle of the night and had to silently howl and curse the blasted things...
And so today, I decided to get them to clean their rooms and uttered the words " You two! Clean your room!" and I watched them giggle and run off into the bedroom ruins.


I began to do the kitchen, listening to the noise of two children who were very much NOT cleaning the room.

When I walked in, I asked them why they werent doing anything.... and I realised that if  I was them, I would have no clue where to start.
Now, I am a lister. I create lists just to cross things off them :) It gives me sense of achievement knowing Ive completed little things and ticked them off. It seems to make the tasks easier to do and not so BIG.  And so, I talked to them about doing a little bit at a time, step by step. I gave them a task to do and they had to complete it. And little by little, the room began to show some resemblance of a normal dwelling area rather than a pigsty.


As I did each job alongside them, I took a photo of each job they had done with a plan in mind.
Once we had finished, I began to make them a photo board of how to clean their room for next time.

Now, once a week, Im going to encourage them to follow the steps and clean their room themselves.  They can pick a list each, and start ticking the jobs off. Once broken into parts, this task will be so much less daunting and so much more possible for them to do :)

List One:
 Clothes in the basket
 Hang bag on the door
 Books in the box

 


List Two:
Make your bed
Put your Friends on your bed neatly
Cars in the cars box

















Im going to laminate the two lists, and hang them in their room. Hopefully it will work!
Will let you know how it goes ;)