Wednesday, November 24, 2010

M&M's and Cleanup time!

Lately Kira has had a hard time cleaning her room, ending with me so frustrated that she is throwing a fit that I say something like, "ok, if you are going to throw a fit then you can take a nap...and THEN clean your room. You'll have plenty of time since you can't eat dinner until it's clean." Which results in more tears and whining. I have tried helping her, which ends in me cleaning her entire room. Directing her, which makes me frustrated because she moves SOO SLOW, and I have a million things I could be doing instead of standing there. Anyways, we woke up this morning and I told her she had to clean her room before Covey(her friend) comes over to play and that she had to have her room cleaned before he came over. She wasn't thrilled about cleaning it, but at least she wasn't whining.
After she had been cleaning for about 5 minutes, every minute or so asking me to come see her progress, I was so happy that she was cleaning with a great attitude! It made me remember the incentive that my Mom occationally used to get me to clean my room: M&M's.
Thankfully I have M&M packs left over from halloween so I told Kira to go in the livingroom and play while I went to get the M&M's. I then proceeded to hide them around the mess in her room. One under her doll blanket, one next to the dirty clothes, etc. Now as I type this I keep hearing the happy sounds of her scurrying around her room and the occational squeal of, "I found one!"
Thank you Mom for your ingenious idea! I have a feeling that cleaning her room is now a game and not a chore!

2 comments:

  1. I may just use this idea myself!

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  2. I love this! Hmm, now to find something to make this work with a teenager's room!! lol

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