It’s freaking late, I’m walking down the hall and I look into the kids’ bathroom, and the sight to see just kills my eyes.
I feel like this happens all the time, and it holds no prejudice to just the bathroom. Hurricane Brooke sweeps through her bedroom, the playroom, the dining room table, the living, the family room, hell... even my room.
I quickly got on
Instagram and showed everyone the extent of the bathroom, toilet papered seat and all. Maybe before, I would be so ashamed to even talk about it let alone show all my followers, that include friends, co-workers and family. About a quarter of those people are judgemental as fuck! Holy hell, people who judge, are the epitome of moms like me. Moms who struggle just to keep dishes out of the sink, that kind of mom. It’s a good day if we get the laundry cleaned and the toys picked up off the floor, like heck yes girl I’m a boss!! Every other room we’ll just shut the door! 😂
After the Instagram story, I kind of sat and reflected on what goes through the mind of a 3-4 year old. I decided here on out, I’m gonna come up with a solution for this madness, FEMA isn’t coming in anytime soon to help with the clean up, so it’s up to me fix it. My first initial thought was to clean it up, and maybe start like a reward system for keeping it clean. Then, it hit me like a ton of bricks! I’m gonna make this little terror clean it up herself! I’ll pair it up with the reward system, and for everyday she goes in and cleans up her bathroom, she’ll get a star for the day. Get enough stars, or fill up the chart, what have you, she can redeem her chart for a fun prize at 5 Below, the junkyard heaven for moms.
I’m getting pretty excited about this idea, first of all, I came up with the plan myself, because normally I google everything! Secondly, I really had to think about my son, who doesn’t make the messes, he’s actually really good at cleaning up, he’s my angel. I couldn’t make him clean up the bathroom, but I also had to give him the same incentives. I decided to put a chart in each room that gets hit the hardest, the bedroom, playroom and bathroom and have a chart for each kid. If they clean up their mess everyday they get a sticker for that room.
The rules are simple, I’m not gonna nag, and if I have to clean it up myself, a sticker will not
be rewarded. This takes pressure off myself, and the kids, how you may ask? First off, I don’t have to worry about nagging the kids, getting annoyed, yelling, etc., you know the drill. Second, the kids will be motivated when they know they’re working towards something. If for example, Albie cleans and gets his sticker, and Brooke doesn’t feel like it, she‘s gonna be motivated as hell after watching brother get a sticker and her chart remains quite for the day.
When it comes down to the idea of this, it sounds brilliant, but it could easily turn out to be a flop. I’m not a pshycologist, so I don’t understand the psychie of a child’s brain and how it works, I can only make an un-educated guess and pray it works.
Head on over to the kids section of the forum and answer a quick question and interact with other moms to see what they‘re doing.
Sweet Dreams 🌙
- Liz 🤓
