First of all, let me just issue a friendly reminder... IF you choose to Elf on the Shelf things this year, please accept this gift of permission for your elf to just show up and then show up somewhere different the next day. If you are the type of person who likes to use your elf to create a mischievous holiday tableau day after day, by all means, do. But if you aren't - do not let Pinterest shame you!
This message brought to you by the Society For Sane Parents.
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Ho-boy did we have ourselves a melt-down of epic proportions this evening. It started with our sort of ongoing battle over the state of Harper's room - which seems to swing wildly back and forth between perfectly clean and holy $hit did a small tornado tear through the corner of the house?! She has, I fear, more than the typical child propensity to leave things all over the place. I find her socks throughout the house. Or gum wrappers in her desk drawer - when there is an actual trash can beneath the very desk! It is perplexing to say the least.
I get that some of this is human nature - she is less concerned with order in her surroundings than I am. And I have really, REALLY tried to temper my expectations for what happens in her bedroom because, well, it isn't MY room. But things have reached a point where I really feel like if we don't insist on some basic skills like, I don't know, not dropping things wherever you happened to be finished with them and walking away, we're going to be seeing her on a hoarding show in about twenty years.
Is this a nine-year-old thing? A kid thing? Or just a Harper thing? My bet is at least a little on the latter because I have been picking her socks up from all over the house since 2005.
5 comments:
Elizabeth is similar. Her shoes and socks and candy wrappers are ALL OVER THE HOUSE, and I can't see the floor of her room. I finally threatened that I wouldn't do any laundry that wasn't in the vicinity of the laundry basket, and we'll see if it works better than my daily rants about "THIS is why you should put your shoes away: so you can FIND them when you WANT them!!"
We are just starting to battle over Katy's room (at 7) because I have let her take more responsibility for keeping it clean in the past year. (complication: she shares with her brother, but her stuff kinda takes over in there). My struggle is that she will go up there to play and set up some elaborate store or "art studio", but then never clean it up. Eventually I will send her up to clean it up, but she will just pick everything up off the floor and pile it onto other surfaces (desk, dresser). Which drives me CRAZY. But what can I say, "Your stuff needs to be neatly organized by category?" I guess "off the floor" is a good start.
I just walked back out of the twins room because I was afraid that I was going to hyperventilate. True story.
And I forgot an apostrophe (twins' vs twins). That's how discombobulated I was.
I really really hope it's a 9 year old thing, b'c my daughter is nearly 9 and oh my goodness the playroom and her/her brothers room is a mess. It's just like you said, a tornado, or hurricane has come through and left this in its wake.
I don't have an answer, but I am considering the "box" - I've seen it on Pinterest, haha. If Mommy or Daddy has to pick it up, then you have to do a chore, chosen from a list of options, in order to earn it back. I swear I am at my wits end with this mess.
Good luck. And if you have any single socks, let me know b'c I probably have the mate.
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