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October 5, 2005, 9:11 pm PDT
10/05 Moms: Cut the Chaos
Quote From: rockieI could totaly related to most of the women on today's show. I am a mother of 2 girls (6 and 4). I feel overwhelmed 99% of the time. I really liked the suggestions about getting organized and I feel I am fairly organized, however I live with three other individuals that are not organized at all. My problem is that of the 4 people in my house (me,my husband and two daughters) I am the only one that cleans. I think that most of my chaos comes from the fact that my girls and husband do all the dirting and I do all the cleaning. My husband keeps telling me that I need to just remember that our girls are still little. I will ask my girls to please pick up their stuff, but it usually ends up in a huge battle to get them to do what I ask.
The two ladies that suggested getting organized and having your children help out is a great idea, except that, that usually creates a whole different mess that I have to pick up in the end. My gilrs are excited in helping but disapear when it comes time to clean. Anyone have any suggestions??? Have you tried some sort of positive reinforcement? I have a three-year-old and a two-year-old, both boys. They both make their beds every morning and they both help me clean up after dinner. They scrape plates and help me load the dishwasher. On the weekends they help me dust and do some other little things. They both have marble jars. I got two little jars and let them decorate them with stickers and other things. Then they got to pick out which color of marbles they wanted. They get marbles for the things they do. Like, if they do all of their morning stuff without too much resistance then they both get three marbles. Now, they don't do the things 'my' way, but I just had to let go of that. They are learning to help and are really proud of the fact that they made their bed or that they helped mom with dinner. When they get a certain number of marbles then they get a reward. Hope this helps!
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