Nanny 911: Games to Get Kids to Clean Up

First of all, let me say that you are already letting your kids off the hook way too easily. "Setting up a timer or racing to see who can pick up the most toys does not interest my boys the least bit." You have already offered fun ways to get them to clean up and they still aren't doing it. I feel your kids have your number and are not taking you seriously, and you are letting them get away with it.

How about stepping up and saying, "Clean up or else the consequence will be ..." and then actually following through? (Cleaning up for us isn't fun either, but we do it so we don't live in pig stys!) How about as the parent, you should instill the rule of "put it away before you take something else out"? Reintroduce a timer if you still need the fun element, set it for five minutes and then see who can pick up the most toys and put them away in the right place before the timer goes off. The idea of making cleanup a race instead of a chore is that you will be making it more interesting. You could even play along yourself!

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