Refusal to clean up.....

[Butterfly Dawn]

sorry I'm with the pp, I wouldn't take teddy or stickers. taking stickers off isn't fair.

most kiddie are like that at his age. they need help, want help at home. its diff at kindy.

what motivates him? mini bribery helps and its not used forever. I give my 4yr acountdown and then say things like "come on, i'll help you tidy up and then you help me get our snack ready".
competitions to.see who can.get their part if the toys looking the nicest (winner gets a treat or a star)

if he's tired/ hungry etc then its all harder

[Beach Mama]

Thanks for all your suggestions DH has been away for 24 days so am just at wits end and no patience and I think he is taking his cue from that as well. I didn't want to take the stickers away either but threatened it because I was so jacked off - turns out it worked because he went to sleep without carrying on, probably from exhaustion.

I don't want to take teddy either as you said Kel it's not related at all to what he is doing but so hard when what is related doesn't bother him ITMS? I have threatened to take him in the past but never have (that's probably my problem half the time!!)

Will keep plugging away and try all these suggestions as well as maybe starting to help him so he starts but then saying, you keep going and I will be back and slowly getting him to do it himself. Thanks again xoxo

[kateo]

You could possibly try my "teaching" trick. I always start any messy activity with a "tidy up plan warning" Like " we'll play with the toys now BUT if we want to go play outside we'll have to tidy up" and at home when nannying I used to say " if you tidy up while I do dinner prep then we can all go to the park for a while. If I have to help you pack up you'll have to hang in the kitchen while I prep dinner and there won't be time for the park.........." The other thing I did was to use behaviour patterning. If the kids got a new toy or tried a new way of using an old toy I'd help them tidy the first few times and add this help to the above two suggestions. I also model tidying up myself by telling kids what tidying I'm doing and why. "I need to tidy the toys in the living room so we know we haven't lost any bits and so I can vacuum"
This was effective.
So I guess my ideas are
1. give a warning of clean up expectations before the activity starts
2. tie tidying up to a positive "extra" instead of a negetive "take away"
3. pattern the behaviour you'd like to have them continue.
4. explain the importance of tidying and model tidying up

Good luck! Having been a kinda teacher I can tell you every little person is different and they all have a different leel of what they think is "tidy"!

[trishalishous]

This may be a little harsh but in the past with DSS ages 3 and 6 we give three chances to clean it up and explain that if they haven't done it after being asked nicely three times me or DP will tidy it up but the toy goes away in the cupboard. The threat of taking a toy away usually works and on the occasions we have packed up ourselves and put the toys away the boys have been less than impressed when they go to play with that toy again and it's in the cupboard.

this has worked for us so far, most of the time.

[Butterfly Dawn]

the thing I have found with the threats is they work well a few times but if you have a tired kid or melt down day they often don't care and then threats either escalate or just stop working.

I love pattern behaviour/ practice behaviour, I have seen that a bit and it works well and its a great way to give them a star on their chart.

[M D]

I guess I see throwing g the toy out as a concequence of not packing away, I only had to follow through once and DD understood the concequence for her.

Everyone is different some may seem harsher than others, it comes down to doing what you are comfortable with.

[Frangipani Lou]

Have you thought about making it fun? Perhaps saying to him ' I wonder how fast you can pack up today?' And then timing him with an electronic kitchen timer. Then the next time asking him if he thinks he might be able to better his previous time. Then reward with acknowledgement of his success. That way there is no power struggle or procrastinating for attention or what we call assumed inadequacy ( I can't do it attitude). You are coming from a different angle. I hope this helps :-)

[BlackCat]

I agree with the sticker thing, leave it as a positive. He has rightfully earnt those so leave those be, otherwise he might think "well whats the point of doing xyz when mummy will take it away anyway" if you know what I mean.

Teddy is our security item too, we never use or threaten punishment with Teddy unless "Teddy" has done it . This way, again, Teddy stays a positive go to toy that still helps with feeling secure and has no negativity attached.

Our 4 year old tests this one out all the time too. We use time out BUT we use it when we are prepared to fight the issue because time out in this house doesnt mean you go to time out and then Mummy and Daddy do whatever task was asked of you. The toys stay there and then the request is asked again, if its not picked up then back into time out and so on and so forth.

We find though that the rule - one toy at a time - works well. If you want to play with the next toy/item/movie then you need to pick up and pack away the last as we can only play with one thing at a time. If you don't want to do that, then the toy stays out and you don't get to play with something else. Our 4 year old was used to us picking everything up for them, they now to do majority on their own. They also know that if they ask for help nicely then I will likely help but not all the time, but outright refusal or a tantrum, will not get them what they want.