5 year-olds and their toys...

I was just wondering how other 5-year olds treat their toys. I still feel like my twins make the same sort of messes they did as toddlers. They have such a hard time taking care of their toys/possessions and make such a mess on almost a daily basis that I cannot even keep up when the days are busy :drown: I mean, some days, they just TRASH their playroom - dumping things everywhere. I feel like they are acting like 2 year olds some days, you know what I mean? They do play constructively and appropriately with certain toys, but sometimes they just throw things around and sometimes break things in the meantime (stepping on toys on the floor, etc.) I've seriously had it. Today, I literally felt like just going down to the playroom and throwing out all those little trinket-y things that annoy me. I am so tired of finding them all over the place, stepping on them, having the floor covered in them, etc. The toys that come with a ton of tiny pieces never go back to where they belong and toys get "ruined" that way (missing pieces).

My son does have ADHD so it is difficult for him to remember things sometimes (like where he puts things and why), and the hyperness that comes with the territory contributes to the messes (he does get in fits where he will throw things around and be careless with his possessions).

I went down there this morning (after having not cleaned it last night, even though I should have) to find orange juice ALL over the play kitchen and floor (when they know they aren't allowed to take juice/drinks down in the room for this very reason - we've had issues like this before). Covering all the cups, cooking stuff, etc. They just left it there and didn't care about it, try to clean it, or tell me about it. It just got me so mad. I threw away some of the kitchen stuff that was covered in juice because I was angry about it (and made sure they knew I threw it out!) It was part of their punishment. And of course, made them clean it up.

Ugh, it's such a battle. I am just tired of the mess I guess. How do your twins/children, at this age, do with toys/messes/cleaning?? Any good ideas for me to enforce cleanliness and taking care of toys? :faint:

Thanks!!

 

Sounds like my 4.5 yo. You mean it doesn't get better? Sigh.

I've thrown out stuff covered in juice/yogurt/barbecue sauce/poop before...

 

My five year old girls make absolute messes too, and act like it's the end of the world to have to clean up. I've not been good enough at enforcing clean up every single day, but at my mom's house they're awesome at clean up because she insists on it before they can do the next activity. We were there for three weeks and it was amazing - they cleaned up about a thousand Legos at a time with no complaint. I really do think it's expectations.

But, right now the family room floor is covered by Scrabble pieces, the art table chairs, couch cushions and horses (which make up a chariot, of course), and about ten million crayons and markers. In the toy room, the Polly Pocket bin was dumped and so was the doll clothes bin. And this was all in about two hours of playing. I told them they need to pick up one room before dinner and one after. We'll see how well that works...

We haven't had broken toys or food/drink spilled. If that happened, I do think I'd throw some toys out, or at least put them away for a week or so as a consequence.

 

My son who will be seven in October is the SAME way. :wacko:

 

Mine have actually greatly improved over the last year. We are diligent about making them clean their room before they are allowed to play with friends outside, before they watch movies, before bed, etc.

Our neighbors have two boys, one's 8, the other is 6; all four of them play together and the 6 year old comes in and dumps everything on the floor, then I hear a round of "aaw man you're making such a mess!" or similar from my two and the older neighbor kid!

 

Yes, mine have gotten so.much.better this year! They have to clean up 80% of the time before we do anything else (go outside, have a friend over, etc) unless we are under a time crunch or they request to leave out a certain play set up (My little pony parade, lego creation, etc) it is cleaned up

We also clean up prior to bed. The slower they are at cleaning the less reading time they get!

Our rule is if they toss it anywhere (books across the shelf instead of vertical or clothes under bed)- it goes back on the floor. No, they are not neat- but yes the right objects make it into the right location more often than not.

Do they grumble, yes. Do they miss out sometimes. Yes. Do they hate it. Yes. Do they do it as tidy as I would like- no. But it gets done.


I will say our house is fairly cluttery and more often than not the floor needs a vacuum- but I like to walk across the floor w/o a lego jabbing my heel or tripping over dolls.

 

Mine make messes but are usually good about Turing it back in the tubs or toy box. I randomly throw away unless little pieces as they annoy me and usually serve no purpose!

 

Well, ours are 6.5 years old and the messes are still getting made. They are better at cleaning them up, but the messes still get made. At least once a week, the playroom turns into a disaster.

We have moved all toys/games/etc. into their bedrooms or the playroom, which helps to contain the messes.

I'm right there with you!

Best,

Meg

 

I could have written your post a few months ago except that mine are 7. What had the most impact was that I changed MY behavior and made it a point to tell them to clean up 10-15 mins before dinner and tidy their closet and bathroom 10 mins before getting into bed for reading. They are quite compliant about cleaning up, it was me who wasn't reminding them. Now there is nowhere near as much to pick up since they do it every day. Oh and if they did a sloppy job of tidying, I'd give them one chance to redeem themselves by saying, 'So if I find anything lying around I can throw it away?'

 

I agree, it's been better now that I'm on their case every night, lol.

 

I would reduce the number of toys they have in there-keep the big items (kitchen, train table etc) and maybe 4 or 5 buckets of stuff (like one of Lego, one of cars, one of animals). Put the rest away, in an attic or basement or just on a higher shelf, and then every month or so switch over which toys you have out for them to play with. That way they won't have so much stuff to tip out in the first place which will make the clean up less overwhelming.
Also you can make labels for the different tubs to show what goes in them, put the word and a picture of the toy. That should help them to learn/remember what needs to go where.

I totally agree with this. If you expect/enforce a regular clean up they will get better at it as well as more compliant. I make my children clean up their toys at least once a day every day and I have done since they were toddlers. At this point there is basically no resistance when I tell them it's 'tidy up time', they just accept it as part of their day.
Having said that at 5 I could not just tell them to tidy up and leave them to it, especially if there was a large mess. I would direct each of them to a specific task ("A can you put the puzzles back in their boxes, B put all the dinosaurs away"), praise them when they did that bit and repeat with a new item until everything was done. I think it was closer to 6.5/7 that I could simply tell them to tidy up and have them do a good job.
I also have it set up so that it's a nice activity-usually story time but sometimes TV or going out-right after clean up to help motivate them to get done.

 

Mine are awful because we are too wimpy to enforce cleanup regularly. We see that at school and camp, they have to clean up one activity before they can start the next, and they do it. But at home we don't enforce this, so they just leave cr@p all over the place. We really need to crack down.

Part of it, though, is that they really do come back to those things sometimes. I wish I could be flexible (like, it's OK if you leave the Wedgits out, because I know you will build with them again after dinner), but then flexible turns very quickly into too-lenient.

We do make them clean up before TV at least every few days, or before something they really want to do, like a playdate or a trip to the playground. But the other problem is that I feel like we just have.no.time. We come home from afterschool care at 5:45, I make dinner, they get ready for bed. Period. Somehow they manage to MAKE a mess in that time, but I hate to spend half an hour of our precious time forcing them to clean it up.

Glad to hear that it does get better with consistent enforcement. I'm motivated now!

Oh, I do sometimes tell them (after they have "cleaned up"), "So, all these things that are still lying on the floor, I can throw those away?" Occasionally they say yes! And sometimes things go into time-out and never come out, so I throw them away months later when I find them again.