Saturday, November 3, 2007

It's All a Matter of Perspective Really

My DH and I have days where we tear our hair out at the state of our 6 year old daughter's bedroom. Admittedly it is nice that she plays with so many of her toys. It's just a pity she seems to need to have them ALL out at once. And a pity she doesn't seem to be capable of packing them away when she's finished with them.

Saturday mornings the kids are supposed to tidy up their bedrooms and do a couple of other small jobs around the house. It doesn't happen *every* Saturday morning but most weeks it does.

This morning she got her room all tidied up to a passable level. We don't "insist" on it being immaculate but it is nice to be able to get further than the door.

Now that they've finished doing their "Saturday jobs", the kids are back into the business of playing. :-) DD says to her younger brother, "come into my room". The 2 of them play really well together *most* of the time.

As they both walk into her room, DD has a look around and then announces "well, this is BORING!" LOL. When we walk into her room, we see a huge mess. Obviously when she walks into her room, she sees an ongoing game. Perhaps that is why she doesn't seem to pack things away when her game is finished. The game is NEVER finished.

So, is her room a *mess* or is it simply *in use*? It's all a matter of perspective really. LOL.

9 comments:

Frogdancer said...

Nothing a tossed lit match wouldn't cure.........

Unknown said...

My daughter is the same and she's now 11 and a half ~ No game is ever finished!!!!

Anonymous said...

You've just described my son's room exactly!! lol

We have decided that if the bed is made and nothing is under it, if the wardrobe will close, the desk is tidy, and there aren't copious amounts of texta's/papers/books/clothes/shoes etc all over the floor that an ongoing game on the town mat in his room is fine.

Thing is that when he's done those other things........ WE can tell that the toys are an ongoing game and not just more mess.

Anonymous said...

I used to give my kids between after school Thursday till Saturday lunch time to clean their room. This allowed them to choose when to do it and if their weekends were busy they could get it done before the weekend.
BUT if they had an ongoing project going EG. railway trackes etc they were allowed to leave them there but all the clothes and other rubbish and things not "in Use" had to be tidied up.

Kirby said...

i used to hate having to clean my room or when mum cleaned it, i could never find things when it was clean,

Anonymous said...

This brings back memories of my sister - her bedroom was always so messy. My parents gave up trying to get her to clean it and ended up saying "Just make a path to the bed".

Oh, good times, good times. :)

Rachelle said...

Great post! I could've written it exactly, right down to the "Saturday jobs" and the fact that it doesn't *always* get done. How interesting that your DD likes her room better messy!

The Tin House said...

Ahh - so there's hope yet. My eldest is nearly 8 and you can't close his cupboards, you can't see his desktop, you can't tell clean clothes from dirty on the floor, the lego is EVERYWHERE, his pillow fetish increases daily and then there's the odd apple core just for that added - je ne sais quoi...bleugh. The 3 year old's room is getting worse. He loves to dress up....but constantly. He's spiderman one minute, and a banana in pyjama ninja the next. The outfits are tossed unceremoniously.

lightening said...

frogdancer - thank goodness I wasn't eating breakfast reading your comment. LOL. I do LOVE my house too much for that solution. Do you realise how much time goes in to designing and building a home? LOL. Once is enough for me!

It's nice to know we all struggle with similar issues when it comes to kids bedrooms though isn't it. LOL. The worst thing for me is it's self-inflicted - I can't resist buying all those wonderful "girlie" toys that I was "deprived" of when I was a child. LOL.