May 9, 2008

The kids had to clean their rooms today. I went up to put them to bed last night and was not happy by what I saw. It looked like a tornado had touched down in their rooms.  ( My 9 yr. old has her own room while my 7 & 4 yr. old share) It was unacceptable! First is the issue of respecting my authority, I have asked them to keep their rooms picked up. Second was respecting the blessings God has given them in their toys and clothes.  Why is it that all children seem to have trouble with this????? I wish I understood why it is that they don’t respect and obey me when I ask them to keep their rooms tidy. Perhaps I don’t follow through with consequences often enough, or they get away with things to often. Perhpas they just simply have to much. Mabey I should take some things away (that always goes over well with kids dosen’t it) Anyway, they were not happy with me today because I made them go upstairs right after school and clean their rooms and stay there until it was done! Exclamation point!!!! We’ll my 9 yr old cleaned hers right up in about 45 min and was downstairs doing something more enjoyable when I went up to check on the other two. They hadn’t done one single thing! They had been laying on thier beds doing nothing! So, I calmly informed them that if they didn’t finish today they would just have to get up the next morning (Sat.)and continue…that they would not be allowed downstairs for fun activities until it was done. Plain and simple. I also reminded them that their sister had already finished. Well, that did the trick. They started cleaning really fast. I went back downstais and not half and hour later they both came bounding down with big smiles announcing that they were done! Well…….I asked them if they were sure…..that I was going to check under the beds, in the back of their closet, in their drawers and toyboxes…just to make sure that all was in it’s place. That is when their smiles left their faces and they informed me that they just wanted to go back up and check once more before I came up. Hmmmm, ok I said. They raced back up and I could hear banging, clanking and scuffling. Another half hour later they came down again. “It’s all done.” they said. I went up. It was nice! (for a 7 and 4 year old) A couple of little “Mom” adjustments and we all went down and I made a nice dinner for all of us.