Epic Parenting Battles, Seuss- style: Clean Your Room!!!
Sometimes parenting can feel a bit like some of the characters in a Dr Seuss story. Two particulars float into my mind, namely Marvin K Mooney, Would you Please go now? and Green Eggs and Ham. The first sounds like an excerpt from the exchange I go through with my children to get out of bed for school in the morning, complete with everything from fruitless prodding and pleading and goading to the diffident response of my darlings.
Me: "Sweet darling sunshine, it's time to get out of bed now"
Dear Daughter: not so much as a yawn or a blink
Me: "Come on, sweetie, I know you don't want to miss breakfast"
DD: rolls over and snoozes away
20 minutes later...
Me: FIRST, MIDDLE, LAST NAMES!!! Get out of bed right this minute or I'm going to have a cow!!!
Well, as of last week, school is blessedly over for the summer. Now I have a new round of parenting trifles in the form of tackling their bedroom. I'm not asking anything unreasonable, simply that the floor space be navigable and that a simple organization pervades the room, toys in toy box, shoes in shoe box, clothes in laundry bin or drawers, trash and foreign objects removed. You'd think I'd asked them to hang by their toes from the ceiling by their reactions. Scratch that, they'd actually probably jump at that opportunity. So, I did a quick Google search on suggestions to help make the process more bearable and fruitful for my brood. The first thing suggested was that I should model to my children how I want them to clean their room by showing them how I clean around the house. So I walked them through a 10 minute demo of straightening out my own room. They got it perfectly well and were all supportive and keen to pick up on what Mommy should do in her room. Encouraged by their response, I proceeded to steer them toward completing the same tasks in their room. Not so much.
Soo, once again I was plunged into another living nightmare of parenting like a Seuss in the form of Sam I Am...
Me: "I am Mom. Mom is me. Obey and clean your room"
Kids: give me looks of perturbation and annoyance
Me: "You just saw what to do. Why don't you try it?"
Kids: "I don't wanna"
Me: "Would you clean it so you can play?"
Kids: "We just want to play"
Me: "Do you want this to take all day?"
ad infinitum
The good news is I have an ace up my sleeve;) DD has a birthday in 2 days and my son's is next month and there's an iPad in their near future (shh! they don't know yet). They won't be able to use them without the passcode which only Daddy and I will know. No clean room, no iPad. Well, at least it sounds good in theory...
Me: "Sweet darling sunshine, it's time to get out of bed now"
Dear Daughter: not so much as a yawn or a blink
Me: "Come on, sweetie, I know you don't want to miss breakfast"
DD: rolls over and snoozes away
20 minutes later...
Me: FIRST, MIDDLE, LAST NAMES!!! Get out of bed right this minute or I'm going to have a cow!!!
Well, as of last week, school is blessedly over for the summer. Now I have a new round of parenting trifles in the form of tackling their bedroom. I'm not asking anything unreasonable, simply that the floor space be navigable and that a simple organization pervades the room, toys in toy box, shoes in shoe box, clothes in laundry bin or drawers, trash and foreign objects removed. You'd think I'd asked them to hang by their toes from the ceiling by their reactions. Scratch that, they'd actually probably jump at that opportunity. So, I did a quick Google search on suggestions to help make the process more bearable and fruitful for my brood. The first thing suggested was that I should model to my children how I want them to clean their room by showing them how I clean around the house. So I walked them through a 10 minute demo of straightening out my own room. They got it perfectly well and were all supportive and keen to pick up on what Mommy should do in her room. Encouraged by their response, I proceeded to steer them toward completing the same tasks in their room. Not so much.
Soo, once again I was plunged into another living nightmare of parenting like a Seuss in the form of Sam I Am...
Me: "I am Mom. Mom is me. Obey and clean your room"
Kids: give me looks of perturbation and annoyance
Me: "You just saw what to do. Why don't you try it?"
Kids: "I don't wanna"
Me: "Would you clean it so you can play?"
Kids: "We just want to play"
Me: "Do you want this to take all day?"
ad infinitum
The good news is I have an ace up my sleeve;) DD has a birthday in 2 days and my son's is next month and there's an iPad in their near future (shh! they don't know yet). They won't be able to use them without the passcode which only Daddy and I will know. No clean room, no iPad. Well, at least it sounds good in theory...