I would consider myself a fairly good parent. I have been at it for over 21 years, so you would think I had it down pat. Yet, sometimes I get "ideas". Mind you, they seem good at the onset, creative solutions even, but it doesn't take me long to realize they aren't very well thought out. The latest of these ideas came last week.
You see, my kids are driving me crazy. They can completely destroy a room in about five minutes. Like miniature tornadoes. I had begun to feel like all I ever do is bark orders about cleaning up messes. Most of the time it is me who cleans up the messes, but not with a smile on my face. I believe if they see how frustrated it makes me, they will feel bad and help me out. WRONG. I have finally accepted that this will never happen, ever. They do not care. In desperation I came up with what I thought was a solution for Brooke and Anna's room. I would make the room being clean a competition. Whichever one had the cleanest side of the room when I did a random check would get 50 cents. Great idea right?
The thought behind this idea was that they would see how easy it really is to keep their room clean...that it would become a habit after a while and they wouldn't need the reward. They would magically hang up all of their clothes and stop stuffing everything they didn't want to put away under their beds. They would get a sense of satisfaction from the experience. Plus, competition can be fun and that would be a strong motivator. The biggest part of this farce though was that I thought I would no longer have to say the words "clean your room" or that this type of competition would be a good thing.
Basically all I accomplished with this was to create an additional problem. Oh, it went o.k. for the first 2 days. O.k. for Anna anyway. You see I forgot that Anna is already neat, so this was a breeze for her. Brooke on the other hand is scatterbrained and chaotic by nature and there was no way she would ever win. The room was clean, but that problem had been replaced by a new problem. Brooke was whining and Anna was gloating. Shouldn't I with all of this parenting experience have predicted this?
So I have come to a new conclusion about the whole cleaning their room thing. This is my problem and my problem only. THEY DON'T CARE!
Here is my new idea...I am going to let the mess go. I am going to tackle MY problem and let my children be normal children. It is time to do what I did with Ashley. When she got to a certain age, I just started closing the door. If I didn't have to look at the mess, it didn't bother me as much. My hope is that they will get sick of it and clean it up every once in a while, but I am not holding out a whole lot of hope.
After all, this is MY problem. They are not crazy, but it is quite possible I am. I should be glad that my children are comfortable in their own mess and don't mind showing it. I think that cleaning, even as a child, became a way for me to control something about my world. I would close myself in my room and empty every drawer and closet shelf and then organize everything and put it neatly back in place. This would take hours, but it gave me a "high" of sorts even as a child. When all else failed, I would clean and organize something and suddenly feel better. I have done this my whole life. My children don't need the same safety net I needed as a child. They are already feel safe and a clean room is not what has given them that feeling. Brooke and Anna are in the bedroom I grew up in. A room that truthfully held a lot of dark memories for me. I have to shift my focus and be thankful that this room has become a place of happy memories. They laugh, they fight, they share "sister" secrets in that room. Things are just the way they should be even if there are clothes and toys all over the floor.
After all, this is MY problem. They are not crazy, but it is quite possible I am. I should be glad that my children are comfortable in their own mess and don't mind showing it. I think that cleaning, even as a child, became a way for me to control something about my world. I would close myself in my room and empty every drawer and closet shelf and then organize everything and put it neatly back in place. This would take hours, but it gave me a "high" of sorts even as a child. When all else failed, I would clean and organize something and suddenly feel better. I have done this my whole life. My children don't need the same safety net I needed as a child. They are already feel safe and a clean room is not what has given them that feeling. Brooke and Anna are in the bedroom I grew up in. A room that truthfully held a lot of dark memories for me. I have to shift my focus and be thankful that this room has become a place of happy memories. They laugh, they fight, they share "sister" secrets in that room. Things are just the way they should be even if there are clothes and toys all over the floor.
I am still taking bets though on just how long I will be able to go without saying "CLEAN YOUR ROOM"!
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