Tidy in Stages

Am I the only one who can spend time tidying my boys rooms

Only to find that a few minutes later

Disaster !!!

I must have missed the earthquake that only hit their room !!!

I walk in and don't know where to start.....

Funny thing is when you ask them to tidy up

They look at me as if to say

You expect me to pick all this up !!!

From a young age with all mine
I knew they would never understand the concept of "Tidy Your Room"
So we always did it in stages
This was particularly good for my youngest with the ADHD as it never works to give him a big project to undertake without giving him thorough and basic stages of achieving the final goal

Look around the room and give them one instruction at a time

The instruction tidy your room to a child is something they just don't grasp!!
They hear Tidy Up
They interpret this as "Kick everything under the bed out of sight!!!!!!"

I used to start with
Make your bed and put all your shoes together in piles then come and find me
Children think that sounds easy enough and are more inclined to do it

Next see all your clothes that are sticking out of the drawers, fold the ones that are unfolded and you can shut the drawers better
Again this is quite easy and not too overwhelming for the child

Then comes the fun part
See all the lego,bricks,cars,dolls pick them all up and put them into the right containers

Already the transformation is happening

How about all the book or comics that are no longer in a tidy pile??

By now you can see parts of the flooring and all the felt pens spread out most with no lids on????
So there is the next stage

Finally you are left with the odd pieces that never seem to have a home and the bits of rubbish on the floor and of course the odd socks!!!!!!!!

Maybe I am crazy, maybe this only happens in my home

Eventually I am left with their tidy bedroom once again.............
Well for five minutes anyway