Being a parent is hard. So, so, so very hard! We want our children to grow up to be amazing. How could they be anything less when we spend our days playing Little People or trains, reading books, constructing forts, and doing crazy dances? At the end of each day there are things that every member of the family needs to work on…in our house it is cleaning up after ourselves. I find that I am constantly telling my girls to clean up their toys….at least 284,329,196 times per day. I am guilty of telling them that if they don’t clean up that I will donate their toys to kids who don’t have many toys, but I never follow through. The girls have caught on to my empty threat and it was time to do something different.
After seeing this idea on Pinterest (duh, as if it would be anywhere else), I knew that it was only a matter of time before we tried it in our household. So I whipped up a cute little saying in PicMonkey (loooove PicMonkey!) and taped it to a box.
Oh No!
In my hurry to play
I forgot to do something important today.
My toys were on the floor
And Mommy said “No more!
To get these back
You must do a chore.”
I will pick my chore form the slip
And do it nicely, super quick
Then I will have my toy again.
You can download the oh no toy poem pdf here.
I created a list of chores for the girls to perform to get their toys back. Currently the list includes:
| Organize the markers/crayons/scissors/glue |
| Clean the doll house |
| Make your room sparkle |
| Sweep the kitchen |
| Match socks |
| Put the dishes on the bottom rack away |
| Clean the desk |
| Wipe the bathroom counter |
| Dust the living room |
| Organize shoes |
| Sweep the entry way |
| Sort the play food/play dishes |
| Sort the babies/baby clothes |
| Wash the dog’s water bowl |
The girls are very receptive to the idea of the Oh No box right now. Having a big tote box sitting around our house is not attractive, but it is a whole lot prettier than toys, toys everywhere.
At the end of each weekend I plan on going through the box leftovers together to see if that Oh No toy is truly a toy the girls want to keep or donate to Goodwill.
The key is going to be consistency…and you better believe that this mom loves floors she doesn’t have to clean. It should be fairly easy…..famous last words, right?
Have you done something like this before with your kids? How well did it work?
Leandrea is a married mom of two girls, ages 13 and 12, living in Atlanta, GA. She is passionate about helping people save money one coupon at a time. Read more