workable routines

Penny Gaines wrote:

Rosalie B. wrote in :

OK - Here's what you do - Give the 10 yo the specific things FIRST
and list ALL the specific things that you can see.**And*let*him*get*on
with it by himself.**Occupy*the*8*yo*an*another*area.**Then*a fter*half
an hour, switch places, and give the 8 yo "everything else" to clean
up.**Maybe*the*10*yo*will*then*prefer*to*do*"every thing*else"*after
that because the "everything else" may be a lot less than the
categories.

What would probably happen in our house is that the 10yo would
d.a.w.d.l.e... over the tidying up, and not get it done.

Well then you have a different dynamic. In that case, I'd probably
give the younger one the first shot. The things that motivate kids
are different for different kids. You can give them a time limit,
like someone here said. Or say that they won't get dinner or
allowance or whatever until things are picked up.

dd#1 liked to be tidy. dd#2 didn't. So I gave them responsibility
for their own rooms and let them deal with it. They had to change
their sheets and get their stuff into the laundry, and were supposed
to vacuum etc. I didn't go in there much (they weren't allowed to
take food in there). Or course we moved every two years, so it got
cleaned up then.

When dd#2 went to the USAFA (air force academy), she had to keep her
room neat, so she'd make her bed to specs and then sleep on the floor
so she wouldn't have to do it again. The men, they would pop in
unannounced and if they found them sleeping on the floor, they'd strip
the bed. But they weren't allowed to pop in on the girls - they had
to knock first.

grandma Rosalie