If you have a common area in your home that often gets trashed—not just with your kid’s stuff, but perhaps yours, too!—here’s an easy, win-win solution for cleaning up (that works best with kids ages 5-12).
- Get a box. Any kind of box will do as long as it’s large enough, say, the size of a laundry basket.
- Put the box in the common area but out of the way.
- The rule: anyone can place anything in the box that’s left lying around the common area (i.e. not cleaned up after its use). The result: the common area stays clean as the box gets full.
- Once an item goes into the box, it stays there until someone pays to have it removed. The cost should be affordable to all but not relatively free: a quarter is better than a nickel here.
- Put a quarter in the payment jar, and you get to use your item again—until it magically finds its way back into the box. Yes, you’ll have to pay another quarter, but look on the bright side: you know where to find your stuff!
- When the payment jar accumulates enough quarters, everyone goes out for ice cream. Everyone wins!
The fringe benefits:
- Did we mention ice cream!?
- The consequence for not cleaning up after oneself is meaningful yet manageable.
- Consequences are evenly applied to kids and adults alike.
- Your child learns a little bit about money management.
- Your common area is a lot cleaner.
- And once again, there’s ice cream…
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