My house is a mess

Discussion in 'Homeschooling' started by Maybe, Jun 17, 2014.

  1. Maybe

    Maybe New Member

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    Having children around all day has led to a messy house. Plus, I am having discipline problems with all my older children. My 18 yr old refuses to do anything at all. She is working right now. But, she still should do something. She refuses to even put away her own laundry. She leaves for college in two months and I feel like I am just holding out for that now. But, she is causing so much trouble. Yesterday, while I was gone, because the car she uses broke down so I was trying to fix it, she decided she wants to go gluten free. So she pulled a bunch out of the cupboards to read the ingredients. She never put it back. Now, I have to spend time today putting everything back. I actually have left them out. When she walks in the door today, I will take her cell phone and refuse to give it back until she puts the food away and puts her laundry away and writes her thank you notes for graduation. These are things she has not had time for, because not only does she work, but she has a boyfriend she seems to need to be constantly connected to.

    Someone left out the granola bars. I do not know who, it may have been above mentioned daughter. I was watching Wall-E with the younger children and I thought the 2 yr old was puttering around me. Well, she was puttering around me. But turns out, she got a hold of the box of granola bars and opened then all and crumbled them in with her toys. I thought she was just playing with her toys! Now I had to spend over an hour this morning picking up every single little toy she has (she was playing with beads) and then wash them all to get the stickiness off and then vaccumming everything she got granola on.

    All the kids eat in the living room. We have an open floor plan. There are rules against eating in the living room. The kitchen overlooks the living room. I thought this set up was great because you really can sit at the kitchen table and eat while watching TV. But nope, they carry their food to the couch. Right now, the cushions are in the bathtub getting washed again.

    And I have not even touched the rest of the house. Someone got down the science kits from the top shelves of the pantry. I do not know which child did this. But tons of science stuff and art stuff has been pulled down and left out. Also, bubbles were pulled down. The bubbles might have been pulled down because they were on the shelf by the science stuff. The kids did not do any science experiments. They just left all this out. It has been scattered now.

    I have asked the kids many many times to help me clean up. They refuse. I cannot even re-assemble my pantry until some day, way way in the future, when I can get my little ones to bed in time enough to still have time to clean the pantry. This just never happens.

    None of my children will help. We have little to no storage in this house. I have no furniture to sit on right now in the lower part of my house due to having to clean the couch. I am sitting on a bed down here right now to type this. I am so sick of mess and no help!

    I have confiscated all computers. I told the children that I refuse to look at them playing video games while I run around, not eating, not functioning, and practically having accidents in my pants because I do not have a free split second even. The 10 yr old is particularly angry with me. I took a shower this morning, stressed about the granola bars and the high level of cleaning that needs to be done today. I come out and find 10 yr old making pudding in the kitchen. Kitchen is trashed. When I tell him, again, that he was not supposed to do that without permission, he stops, doesn't finish, sticks his lower lip out and stomps out of the kitchen. At this point, I end up yelling at him and telling him he WILL get back here right now, and he WILL clean up his own mess and I am NOT his slave to serve him and clean after him and so on. He got in and cleaned up and put on this big wounded abused child act.

    I am fed up!!! I do not even know what to do. I am just so fed up! If I had storage space in this house, I would take everything away and wait until he is willing to clean up after himself to let him have anything back. I do not know what to do. Only thing I can think of is installing locks on all the closets and putting all his toys in his own closet and locking it. Also, this boy has tons of clothes but tells me every single day that he hasn't a thing to wear. I go to his closet and individually point each shirt out and he just moans and stomps his feet. He was in public school for the last two years and his behavior turned monsterous while there. He was already very strong willed and public school only turned his strong will to evil it seems.

    I am going to go make charts of things to do. The computers are all packed up for at least a month. I am just at a complete loss and so stressed. Any suggestions? I need to get things in order before we start the new school year.
     
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  3. Laura291

    Laura291 New Member

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    I so feel your pain! If you go to pinterest and search "chores" you will so so m any cool ideas! It's tough with an 18 year old. But if she's living in your house, I would NOT be afraid to treat her like a child still. When she gets home from work, I'd make it a rule that she hands in all electronics and she can have them back when daily chores are done. Maybe make a list of daily chores for everyone (including you) and your 18 year old will feel it's fair that she's picking up a fair amount of the work. I saw the coolest thing lately, I don't remember where, but the mom made a list of all things that had to be done each day (shower, homework, chores, read 20 minutes, play outside 30 minutes, etc). When her kids marked all items off, they were free to play all the video games and watch all the TV they wanted. If they got done with their list by 8am and wanted to let their brains melt away at the computer all day, she said that was fine. She said the system really works well for her - and given the freedom her kids have actually chosen non-video-game activities to do. Good luck!!! :)
     
  4. Laura291

    Laura291 New Member

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    By the way, another cool idea I saw -- change the wifi password and don't give it out until all chores are done!
     
  5. Jackie

    Jackie Active Member

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    One thing I'd do is let the 18yo do her own laundry. I did that to my dss when he was that age; he complained that I wasn't responsible to do his laundry because I had "lost" his shirt. I told him that was fine. Since I wasn't responsible to do it, he could be. Oh, btw, he found the shirt at his mom's house!
     
  6. CrazyMom

    CrazyMom Banned

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    No one ever gasped on their death bed, "I wish I'd cleaned the house more."

    The first thing to do...is get over the idea of perfection. Your house will never be perfect. Adjust your expectations to "the health department would be ok with my house" LOL.

    The second thing to do....is to get over the idea of...."my way is the best way to get this done because if you don't do it my way it's not done right."

    This one has gotten me in trouble on numerous occasions. I'll ask my family to do something MY WAY...and that's a recipe for disaster. As long as it's getting done, it doesn't matter how they're doing it. Even if the result is half-arsed and sloppy, it's better than nothing. Find the positive. Suggest improvement, but don't chalk-board it! Praise the good parts. Be grateful. So, you find a couple of mugs with rings, or a pan that is kinda cruddy...the world doesn't end. You see some junk around the edges of a mostly mopped floor...meh, not as nice as you would have done it....but in the grand scheme of things, does it really matter? Learn to let go and accept. My husband soaks pans in the bathtub....makes me six shades of crazy...but if he scrubs them out, he calls the shots on how to go about it.

    Here's what works for me. The 7:30PM 20 minute Nightly Family Clean. For twenty minutes every night....all devices are shut off, we turn on loud music with a fast tempo... and every person in the house has to clean. Hubby has to clean. Kid's visitors have to clean. You get an hour or two worth of work done...and no one complains too much about 20 minutes. After that, no more nagging. The rest can wait until tomorrow's 20 minute clean.

    Sounds like you're in the dreaded "Burried Alive" Emergency. Here's my strategy: Everyone cancels all their plans on Saturday morning, no exceptions. Thirty minutes of cleaning.....an hour off. Thirty minutes cleaning...an hour off. Thirty minutes cleaning. Three cycles of 30 minute cleans with an hour's rest between. Takes half the day. After that, do something fun and leave them alone until the Sunday night family clean 20 minutes. You'll be back on track before you know it. It honestly adds up.

    Each person does their own laundry. Elle has been doing her own laundry since she was 10. I do mine and hubby's laundry (cause he works full time and I don't) When I was working and he was laid off...he did my laundry. Get a box for charity set up in the laundry room...so stuff can be pitched in there after coming out of the dryer. Don't let it cycle endlessly if no one is wearing it. Make your family go through their closets and get rid of anything they haven't worn in two years. Get it out of the house. Fewer clothes = less laundry.

    Personally, if I were you....rather than hold their computers hostage for a month...I'd post a ransom note: To get your computers back, the housecleaning needs to be caught up. The following areas must be cleaned:

    Be SPECIFIC. Kids are oblivious. They need it broken down. In my house...inside a cupboard in each room (or in a binder on the shelf) is a master list of things that need to be done to that room. Empty trash, wash mirror with Windex, wash tub and surround, stock toilet paper, put out clean towels and rugs, take dirty towels and rugs to laundry room, clean toilet, sweep and mop floor, dust, cobwebs, clean up and organize items on counter, wash sink. Kids work more efficiently from lists. Give a kid a VERY specific list, and he'll do a better job.

    Don't forget the yard work. There is no reason to waste family weekends with yard work. Kids can do this stuff during the week. Elle and I mow all the lawns on Thursday and Friday during the summer. Makes the weekends more relaxing. We keep the landscape small and simple (a few flower beds, four raised beds to garden in, some ornamental trees, some nice big trees). A little mowing around the house, garden, dog pen, and tons of wildflower fields. Mowing acres and acres just seems insane to me.

    Hubby and Elle each cook one night a week. I cook two nights. Fridays are take-out. Weekends, I enjoy cooking...and we all pitch in.

    We split up pet care. Hubby does his big diabetic dog. I do my little husky. Elle does the cats and her rats.

    Kids need to be reminded of their privileges. They always need money. They should be made to understand that their attitude about doing their part to help out....will be equally expressed in your spirit of generosity when they'd like a privilege.

    If you're a "grounder"...and take certain privileges away for misdeeds.....consider using "public service" as an alternate means of working off their sentence. A week long grounding might be worth 500 public service points. You can work off public service points from a chart that might look something like this:

    Load of laundry: washed, dried, folded, put away = 50 points
    Cleaning and disinfecting entire refrigerator and freezer = 200 points
    Washing car = 50 points
    Take out trash, relining cans = 25 points
    Washing windows = 25 points per window

    They pay their debt to society and your house gets cleaned.

    Above all....my advice is not to stress and not judge yourself. At the end of the day...a messy house honestly isn't the end of the world.

    Kill the stinky things, make sure an ambulance can get a stretcher into all the rooms, make sure you're not a fire hazard, make sure no one's health is being risked....and beyond that, let it go.

    And the granola in the toys? If that ever happens again, throw them all in the tub...with the kid....and let her wash them while she takes her bath. Oatmeal is good for the skin. LOL. Kids should help clean their own messes, even little ones. In my house, if you make the mess, you can help clean it.
     
    Last edited: Jun 18, 2014
  7. Jackie

    Jackie Active Member

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    I really like the Public Service idea!!! I'm going to have to mull that one over to see how to tweak it for my family!!!

    (I could NEVER have the kids do their own laundry on a regular basis! It'd be using up too much water, running a million little loads, rather than just a few big ones! Monday is Laundry Day in my house! And when I finally told my dss he had to do his own laundry, he says, "Well, the only time I can do it is on Monday evenings, which means I won't be able to eat dinner with the family!" At that time, Monday was the ONLY day the WHOLE FAMILY was able to sit down and eat together, and he said it JUST because he knew it was important to me! But I was really cool (for once) and said, "If that's what you have to do, it's fine with me!" and didn't get upset AT ALL (though I wanted to deck him on the inside!!!)
     
  8. CrazyMom

    CrazyMom Banned

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    Elle knows enough not to do short loads. She'll throw in towels or sheets to make up the difference. She usually does her own loads twice a week and takes care of most of the household towels. Towels are great to assign to kids...because they're easy to fold and put away, you don't have to treat them for stains or do much special to them. Towels don't cause much trouble in colors or whites, typically.

    But yeah, with a lot of people in the house...it could get trickier. I see your point.
     
  9. Jackie

    Jackie Active Member

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    Huh. I never thought about having them do towels. Towels and sheets are the things that DON'T get done on laundry day; I usually wait until we have a lot of them. But I may start having the kids do them. When the kids were younger, I would read aloud to them while they folded the laundry. Even now I'll do that if we're doing a read aloud, and sometimes they'll watch a movie while folding.
     
  10. Lindina

    Lindina Active Member

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    My husband has been doing his own laundry since high school because he was so picky about how his pants were ironed, his mom told him he could do it himself, and he did. I didn't see any reason to change that long-established habit, so he has continued to do his own for the last thirty years too!

    My daughter and son also learned how to do their own laundry. My 9yo grandson knows how to do his own laundry too. He has a little trouble folding t-shirts, but he's learning.

    I did at one time put chains and padlocks on the kitchen cabinets and the refrigerator. My closet doors don't lend themselves to it very well. We had foster kids, and they and my son needed to learn some things. I did have a large plastic tub with a lid. If I had to pick up something of theirs, it went in the tub and they had to pay me for maid service (either actual money or some job or other) to get it back - toys, clothes, whatever.
     
  11. Laura291

    Laura291 New Member

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    Crazy Mom, I want you to come stay with me for a week!!!! You have such awesome ideas! My mind is spinning as I type on what I want to implement NOW! It's easy as a mom to get stuck in a mode of doing everything yourself, because it's faster than trying to teach little kids. Then the kids get bigger and have no idea how to help out! I'm using this summer to really teach my kids how to care for a house, yard, cook and do laundry, since we are taking the entire summer off of school. Things run pretty smoothly when it's just my kids here, but I have two step kids and it's tougher to get them to help. I LOVE the idea of a 7:30 clean up with the entire family, and any friends who are here!

    Laundry - here is what I started doing and it works well. I didn't want the kids doing their own yet, because some of them are a bit too young (and short), and I was afraid we'd have too many small loads. So, we all separate colors together (or I assign it to a couple of kids) and for the most part I wash and dry (or one of the older kids will pitch in). That's the easy part anyway! For folding, I bought each kid their own laundry basket and put their name on it. Out of the dryer I separate the clothes into the proper laundry basket and then that kid has to fold and put away. For towels, we either all pitch in, or I assign them to a kid. I had to let go of wanting the towels neatly stacked with seams all pointing the same direction - but at least they get done! I had a problem with one kid changing his clothes too many times during the day, and throwing folded clothes into the laundry. Having them fold their own quickly pointed out his problem, and his natural consequence was having to fold a LOT more laundry! The first day we implemented our laundry basket system, I lined the filled baskets up in the livingroom and you could see that my culprit's basket was double over flowing - he had to make two trips back to get all his clothes! It curbed his habit of throwing clean clothes in the laundry, and proved to his dad that I wasn't losing my mind that laundry was out of hand! :)
     
  12. CrazyMom

    CrazyMom Banned

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    The 7:30 20 minute clean....saved my life. LOL. It's SHOCKING how much gets done, and no one complains too bitterly about 20 minutes. I think if it were any longer, it would start to crumble....but 20 minutes is tolerable to most everyone.

    in 20 minutes, a room can get picked up and vacuumed. in 20 minutes, the dishwasher can be unloaded and reloaded. in 20 minutes, the sink, toilet and tub can be cleaned. in 20 minutes, you can clean the litter pan and mop the tile around and under it. in 20 minutes, you can straighten up the TV area, put games away, vacuum the couch. in 20 minutes, you can give a kid a bucket and assign him to check all the rooms and gather up any stray dishes in the house. in 20 minutes, all the garbage can be taken out. in 20 minutes, all the laundry can be gathered and sorted. in 20 minutes, shelves can be dusted and wood can be polished with wood cleaner.

    Think of how much easier your life would be if each person in the house were doing SEVEN of these things per week.

    The group effort seriously adds up. Won't look like much the first couple days, but by the end of the week, you'll notice a HUGE difference in the house and your work load.

    I make the kid's friends work....because I figure if I feed them and drive them around...they can pitch in. The up side is that I rarely say no to them coming over. They're useful. LOL. They honestly don't seem to mind, and I make a point to try to keep everyone's favorite thing stocked. (the boyfriend likes Mountain Dew (bleh!), and the best girlfriend loves snacking on Kellogg's Crave, the cousins like Coke and kettle corn, all the kids love homemade puppy chow) I make them a lot of homemade snacks...nacho grande, cut up fruits and veggies, apples and caramel sauce, homemade humus and pita chips, vegetarian chicken nuggets are weirdly popular lately, deviled eggs, etc.

    I also keep a "help yourself snack cabinet" for the kids with a bunch of single serving stuff. I make single serving stuff myself... I'll take a sack of regular chips and put them in 12 ziplock baggies. I'll put a pan of brownies or cookies in little bags. I'll get the cheap single serving stuff form Aldi....apple sauce, pudding, granola bars, raisins, peanut butter, crackers, etc. It's not that expensive to make a stockpile this way. (I also like this, because I take one small bag of chips and don't overdo it!) The kids know they can take anything from that cabinet...that it's there for THEM. It's nice. Sometimes kid's friends are scared to get into the communal packages...they feel awkward since it isn't their house. Single servings are more approachable.

    I also keep a "help yourself snack drawer" in the fridge stocked with string cheese, gogurt, deli meat for a quick sandwich, cream cheese and bagels, baby carrots.

    Pretty regularly, I'll buy one of those monster gallon sized cans of peaches, or a big tub of frozen strawberries from Gordon's food service and divide them into dozens of little Chinese take-out plastic containers with lids (you can pick these up at Gordon's, too!) I keep them in the fridge. Kids will eat a dozen of these in a week. They LOVE cold fruit, ready to go. Heck of a lot better for them than junk food. If it doesn't all get eaten in a week, we make peach cobbler or stawberry shortcake. Win, win.

    We always try to have fresh fruit on the counter, too.

    The kids can help themselves to something else if they're finicky and don't like what's being served for dinner.....and if they stay over and need to pack a lunch for the next day, they know where everything is and can take care of it themselves.

    My daughter's boyfriend's mom stopped me in the grocery store a few weeks back and was sort of horrified that I made him clean our bathtub. "Did you REALLY make him clean your bathtub? With rubber gloves? Really?" LOL. I pointed out that the kid OFTEN showers at my house when he visits after work....so he is fair game for that job.

    About two weeks later she called me and told me he'd spontaneously started cleaning his own bathroom. She was much less horrified:)

    I make all the kids clean....but I seem to have a lot of extra kids here nearly every day. Must not drive them away too much. LOL. (though I do notice the crowd has been known to thin out around 7PM! LOL)

    You know, I think they like to help...but don't know how to. If you give them a chance to feel good about their efforts, and are careful not to criticize too much...it's shocking how willing they can be.
     
    Last edited: Jun 18, 2014
  13. CrazyMom

    CrazyMom Banned

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    Laura...what an awesome thing to say. Thanks:) I think all you folks have great ideas, too! It's a pleasure to share.
     
  14. Jackie

    Jackie Active Member

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    LOL!!! I'd love to have been a fly on the wall for THAT conversation!!!

    I think I'm going to give this a try, too. I did do a version of it at the old place when it came to weeding the garden. We had the neighbor's maple tree drop helicopters into our garden, and that crop seemed to do SO much better than my veggies! So I would set the timer for 15 minutes each morning, and we'd go out and weed until the timer went off. They didn't complain because they knew it was "only" 15 minutes, but over time a lot got done. This week is Bible School Prep (which means my kids could be at the church DAILY from 9 AM to midnight; there are people who fix meals at the church for the workers!) My kids are there mostly 11-8. Next week they will be doing both an AM and PM Bible School. So maybe after that's over, we'll try this 20 minute clean.
     
  15. Laura291

    Laura291 New Member

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    I am really excited to implement the 7:30 clean up! I've been thinking all day, and I'm going to put together a couple of cleaning buckets (so they don't spend 15 minutes trying to find the toilet cleaner). I'll label the name of the room on the bucket and then I'll just let them choose! You're right - 20 minutes is nothing! And with loud music playing, and parents helping at the same time, I feel sure they'll step up to the task!

    Do you ever have to delegate - or do you just let everyone pick what to clean during that 20 minutes?
     
  16. Minthia

    Minthia Active Member

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    I think if anyone saw my house right now they would cringe! I was super sick on Monday so NOTHING got done, then yesterday I was better but not great, today I actually walked, er I mean tripped, through my house because nobody has done chores in 3 days. It's amazing what 7 kids can do to house in such a short time frame!

    So today I implemented a new "idea". I don't care what the house looks like as long as they are happy. However, they don't get any screen time or friend time or TV time until the house is cleaned. They can play with each other, read books, or clean! In fact there are NO clean dishes in the house right now...so dh and I are going to go out for dinner (probably fast food) and the kids can wash dishes and eat something they cook, or they can eat on dirty dishes. I am 100% sure that at least dishes will get done before dinner because the kids won't eat on dirty dishes.

    We will see how long this lasts and when they actually start cleaning...
     
  17. CrazyMom

    CrazyMom Banned

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    Laura....I have job lists for every room...so all they have to do is look at the list and there are a bunch of itemized tasks that go with each room.

    For the most part, I let them pick their poison..as long as they're pitching in, they can do anything they'd like. I have made special requests of things that really need attention...and people are usually pretty good to notice what needs to be done.

    If I see someone standing around, I'm not shy about assigning them an area, and handing them the list. Visiting kids usually get assigned picking up the basement rec room...because they're the ones who use it. They pick up all their wrappers and trash and empty the waste basket, bring up the cups, organize the games, books, video games, and vacuum the carpet and couch. If they've had a sleep over down there, there are blankets to be folded up, pillows to stack, and a spare mattress that slides back under the futon down there.

    If the kids do all the work...and know how to find the things they need...it's a lot easier to let them sleep over.

    (to clarify, I mean the cousins and the girl friends. We don't generally let teen boys sleep over! LOL. That said, we actually DID keep Elle's boyfriend one night when we had an unexpected ice storm cause neither his mother nor I wanted him on the road)
     
  18. Minthia

    Minthia Active Member

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    I just wanted to let you all know that my whole house got cleaned tonight. I knew it wouldn't take long. :)
     
  19. LeahStallard

    LeahStallard New Member

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    Have any of you ever heard of Nicholeen Peck? She is a homeschool mom who basically teaches about how to get your kids to mind and help around the house and learn how to manage their own behavior. I have heard her speak in person more than once and am so impressed by her! She wrote a book called "Parenting: A House United" and her website is called Teaching Self Government- I urge everyone to check her out!
     
  20. kbabe1968

    kbabe1968 New Member

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    We have a "Do you want to go to the pool (or during the school year, do you want to go on the computer?" List on our fridge, it's a list of things they need to do in order to be able to go on the computer or go to the pool in the summer. We don't go if they're not done. Period. NO ONE goes. If one person is not done, NO ONE goes. (less stringent on computer. Only effects that one person).

    They also have chores on the fridge, and they have to complete them.

    They also have extra chores they can do to earn money.

    It works VERY well. :)
     
  21. CrazyMom

    CrazyMom Banned

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    Minthia....Cool! Glad you're caught up...I always feel so much better:)

    Leah...I'll check out Nicholeen, thanks:)
     

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