These bags of clothes, and toys and just junk in general have been making me crazy! I don't know if it's losing my step dad or something else, just changing my perspective a bit. I am a big believer in kids having responsibilities and not being coddled so much they end up as entitled adults, but this just isn't working anymore. We've been just taking the stuff they aren't treating right and tossing it in a bag. They have to earn it back, the problem has been that there is no time for them to do extra chores or other jobs to earn them back. The bags are in my way and after months they really haven't gotten any smaller. The kids have gotten a little better about picking up but not what I was hoping for.
I'M GIVING IN!
I am just going to do my best to look the other way when their drawers are trashed and socks aren't matched and clothes are hung inside out. When their rooms are a mega pit, I am going to just let it go and clean it when I can. Things probably won't go where they want them, but if I do it, it's just going to have to be good enough. That is what I am focusing on, good enough! I can't do all of their work for them, but some I can and I like to! I feel like right now I spend more energy worrying about the stupid bags full of stuff than it would have taken me to just put it away. They are still young, won't be for long and I know I will probably miss turning their teeny little jeans the right way and putting them away. And if they end up going to college without knowing how to do laundry, well then I guess that is a failure on my part, or maybe just a sneaky way to keep them close and make them come home on the weekends.
Now I am not talking about letting them keep their room as a fire hazard or anything, but if they have the 1.2 million baseball cards on their bed, fine. I just can't spend anymore time asking them to put them away for them to either not do it or do it halfway (usually what happens) and then enforcing the consequences, which really are more of a punishment for me. I'm not keeping track of their stuff though, they are plenty old enough to do that. I won't be hunting in their rooms to find dirty clothes, or baseball uniforms. That is on them, they know where dirty clothes go. Natural consequences without extra effort on my part.
I'm really hopefull that this will just help the atmosphere here. I don't do what info to have them speak their appreciation, but it's nice when they do. Or just act like they do and chip in. Some days that is REALLY hard for me, to feel unappreciated by the whole group. But that's MY doing, my expectations of what they should be verbalizing and not really them.
