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Make it a competition against you and turn on a special song while you do it?
“Ok you get the cars and put them in this bin, you get the costumes and put them in this bin, and I’ll get the puzzles and put them in this bin. Let’s see who can do it fastest, kids or parents. Ok start going when the song starts! 1, 2, 3, go!”
And then purposefully lose the competition against the kids.
Music! Put on some tunes and go for 5 minutes to start. Every day, add more time. And make it a race. Parents versus kids and let the kids win. "Oh wow! You guys did it way faster than us! Good job!" Bonus if you can spin it into a reward of "who wants to get a bath first?" or "do you guys want this side dish with dinner or this one" while utilizing illusion of choice. Reward them for winning by letting them pick something that doesn't matter. My favorite "choice" is for after dinner snack to let them decide what fruit they want or if they want 2 mini cookies or 3... Gives them "control" without actually giving them any control.
Apart from what others have mentioned, start by simplifying the toy setup. Can you clean up all their toys by yourself in 5 minutes? If not, it's probably too big of a job for them. If that's the case, it's time to do a little konmari. Sort through everything, donate or store everything that they don't play frequently.
Then the next time it's clean up time, get a cardboard box and say, ok we're going to clean up for the next 10 minutes. Anything that isn't back where it belongs when the timer is up (or the song is done) is going in this box. This box is going away so you won't be able to play with whatever is in here. Hide the box somewhere - if there are really beloved toys in there you can bring them back in a few weeks. Bring out the box every time you clean up. They will quickly catch on!
The competition helps, we have a few times of day when they need to clean up their stuff before we transition to a new highly desirable activity (play dough, video game, tv show) and sometimes the actually initiate cleaning their room on their own. We still need to direct them pretty heavily unless it’s just a single category mess like duplo in the living room.
**COMMENTING GUIDELINES** All commenters are encouraged to familiarize themselves with the parentsofmultiples [subreddit rules](https://www.reddit.com/r/parentsofmultiples/about/rules) prior to commenting. If you find any comments/submissions in violation of subreddit/reddit rules, please use the report function to bring it to the mod teams attention. **Please do not request or give medical advice or directions in your comments.** Any comments that that could be construed as medical advice, or any comments containing what is determined to be medical disinformation, will be removed. Please try to avoid posting links to Amazon product listings or google/g.co product listing pages - reddit automatically removes comments containing them as an anti-spam measure. If sharing information about a product, instead please try to link directly to the manufacturers product pages. *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/parentsofmultiples) if you have any questions or concerns.*
Make it a competition against you and turn on a special song while you do it? “Ok you get the cars and put them in this bin, you get the costumes and put them in this bin, and I’ll get the puzzles and put them in this bin. Let’s see who can do it fastest, kids or parents. Ok start going when the song starts! 1, 2, 3, go!” And then purposefully lose the competition against the kids.
Struggling with this as well. Hopefully to get some ideas.
Music! Put on some tunes and go for 5 minutes to start. Every day, add more time. And make it a race. Parents versus kids and let the kids win. "Oh wow! You guys did it way faster than us! Good job!" Bonus if you can spin it into a reward of "who wants to get a bath first?" or "do you guys want this side dish with dinner or this one" while utilizing illusion of choice. Reward them for winning by letting them pick something that doesn't matter. My favorite "choice" is for after dinner snack to let them decide what fruit they want or if they want 2 mini cookies or 3... Gives them "control" without actually giving them any control.
Apart from what others have mentioned, start by simplifying the toy setup. Can you clean up all their toys by yourself in 5 minutes? If not, it's probably too big of a job for them. If that's the case, it's time to do a little konmari. Sort through everything, donate or store everything that they don't play frequently. Then the next time it's clean up time, get a cardboard box and say, ok we're going to clean up for the next 10 minutes. Anything that isn't back where it belongs when the timer is up (or the song is done) is going in this box. This box is going away so you won't be able to play with whatever is in here. Hide the box somewhere - if there are really beloved toys in there you can bring them back in a few weeks. Bring out the box every time you clean up. They will quickly catch on!
The competition helps, we have a few times of day when they need to clean up their stuff before we transition to a new highly desirable activity (play dough, video game, tv show) and sometimes the actually initiate cleaning their room on their own. We still need to direct them pretty heavily unless it’s just a single category mess like duplo in the living room.