Generally speaking I'm not a naturally tidy person, but I do find that although I have a certain tolerance for mess, there comes a point when it starts to get to me and then I get stressed and grumpy. We are fortunate enough to have a good sized house and the girls have a playroom. Although it's their playroom, it is still a communal space, so we expect them to keep it reasonably tidy. I try not to get too naggy with K & M about this, but, like me and unlike A, they seem to be procrastinators and frequently, when I've asked them to tidy up the playroom, they might do a little bit, but then stop to play the piano, make something out of lego or otherwise get distracted. When this has gone on for a few days and usually in the meantime the mess has increased, I end up getting shouty and this results in bad feeling, although eventually the room does end up tidier.
Today was one of those days. The playroom has been messier than it has been since we talked about the possibility of getting rats and the necessity of keeping the room tidy so that they could come out to play, and had been for days. What I tend to do is ask the girls to tidy their mess and then we can do x, y or z, all of which are generally things that I know they would like to do and then leave them to it. When they were younger I would tidy with them, but generally now they are capable with a bit of guidance at times of doing it themselves. I left them to it while I went to sort out washing and when I returned there was no discernable improvement and I started to get rather cross.
Part of the issue for me is that, although this blog concentrates on recording and sharing the things we do, it feels to me at least that we waste so much time as a result of this sort of thing. I have no problem with K & M playing for extended periods, but I don't think that it was happens when they are avoiding tidying. So following the ensuing shouting, which did have some effect on the tidyness of the playroom, I explained my feelings, while having a big hug on the stairs with K and then M too. I told them that I don't like nagging them, but that the playroom as a communal room does need to be kept tidy enough to use and that the state it gets into means that they don't have the space to do the things that they want to and could do much more easily if it were tidier. I told them that there are things that we like to do together, that they have said that they want to do, such as my reading to them, doing more work on our human body project, watching dvds etc and that because I often ask them to do a quick tidy first and they don't we miss out on doing those things. I told them (as I have frequently pointed out before) that if they tidy away as soon as they've finished with something or before it gets too messy then it's much quicker and easier and then the mess doesn't build up to the point that they can't face getting started. They both said they understood what I meant and agreed to try to keep it generally tidier. We then agreed that I would quickly clean the bathroom and they would tidy the playroom and then we would just about have time for something before K's ballet lesson.
Happily this worked more or less and so I then read them some more of Nevil Shute's Pied Piper. While I did so K played with stacking cups and a ball and M got some Lego out, which of course they then left out as we were in rush to get K to ballet on time! They did however tidy them away at almost my first request before bedtime.
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