How to motivate the child to clean

[jill]

During the week my house gets trashed and on weekends you do the best you can with activities going on. Today I set out to get my house in order and my child will not even pick up her mess nor help and is un-motivated and it is irritating me for she should know about responsibilities. She is now 7, when I am cleaning will hide in her room or just ignore me when I try prompting her. It is a gorgeous day outside and I told her when the chores are done we can drive to a nice park so she can play outdoors, even threw in a trip for ice cream on the agenda. I told her this at 11 am and it is now 1:20 still un-dressed and still not helping me. I am breaking to vent and only have dusting left to do and finishing laundry which I can finish later. It is so hard to keep a clean house plus my house is smaller so we end up with clutter spots for lack of storage. It also does not help I get NO HELP!


What works to get kids to do their cleaning?

[misty]

Good question, Jill!

My daughter is 12 & SO unmotivated! I keep a basket in the Living room which I deposit her overflow into & when its full I make her drag it upstairs & put it away. But day to day things like dusting, vacuuming, washing dishes, etc she will resist or run away from just like your daughter.

I have gotten her a BIT more willing by refusing to do things for her. Like if I ask her to vacuum & she refuses, throws me an attitude & uses her many varied avoidance tactics....and I end up vacuuming, then the next thing she asks to do get a resounding no. "No, I will not take you to Hollywood video to rent a movie because the last thing I asked you to do you refused me." It works for the most part...next time I ask her to do a chore & she starts to refuse I just tell her "Ok, but remember, when you want something from me, it'll be MY turn to refuse" & she will usually give in.

also money works, but only if shes saving toward something. I dont usually give allowance, but if shes saving toward a goal, I'll agree to give her a nominal fee for household chores. It works until she reaches her goal.

I do allow her room to get messy & chaotic during the week, so she has one set of chores that is her own to control to an extent. The rules are she can have whatever disorder & mess she wants in there as long as theres no food or drink except water in the room & she does a fairly decent clean up job every weekend. She has to clean it on the weekend so her clothes can be found for the laundry & her supply of water glasses can be brought down to be washed.

The rule we have for her stuff being all over the house works to keep her picking up a bit too. If its laying around & I ask her to put it away (or at least into her collection basket) she better do it or its MINE to keep or throw away. After I really did keep & toss a few things she saw I meant business & will pick her things up for the most part. Of course, she's usually too lazy to put them away, but at least everything's in the basket to be carted upstairs.

[katiekat]

This is one problem I don't have. I am a complete neat freak and anything that does not belong downstairs does not come downstairs. The kids have been trained since day one to keep their things in their rooms.
With Joe-money talks he'll do anything for some cash.
Sean thinks cleaning is fun and loves to help.
Could you possibly try making it like a game? Like how fast can you pick everything up and time her? Sean loves that kind of stuff.

[annem]

:-*OH !! ... Well I STILL havent' got this sussed ... and my son is nearly 19 !! so I am sorry not to be able to add any smart or encouraging words !!

One thing I have noticed though is that my son's girlfriend (also 18) is way worse than him when it comes to just leaving things lieing around ... !! We have bits and pieces all over the place which she has literally "left there" ... so from where I am standing neither girls nor boys are very good at this !! (and I have to confess NOR WAS I until I got a place of my own and THEN and only then the motivation kicked in !) ...

By the same token my son spends HOURS every weekend cleaning, polishing and vacuuming his car ... but he would NEVER have DREAMED about doing all that to what he saw as "my" car ... although was in "reality" a car he also rode in a huge amount ...

Sooooo ... I think "ownership" has a huge amount to do with motivation ... BUT I am still thinking on this !!

[jfla]

So here it is Saturday and time to clean up again!
We've had different systems over the years but no one wants to stick with it, even me.

My son was like jill's when he was young except he would get very distracted when putting one thing away.

I've had baskets like misty and let him manage his own room in a similar way as he became a teenager.

No one here is a neat freak and my husband and I don't set very good examples...but we're happy!

I agree with annem about ownership in making a difference. My son is close to yours in age...!8.

We do have rotating chores for everyone after dinner for the kitchen's clutter & clean up which has worked great! I've used this system for a few years now...hmm maybe I should add one more chore to it. That would be to "collect your personal downstairs possessions and put away."
Hmm...I might try that!

[jill]

I think with my girl she is distracted and just plain does not wish to do anything. I even tried recently offering a reward like going for ice cream and that did not work. The search goes on.