Well, I'm taking away the nieces' books.

[conuly]

One too many incidences of coming up and finding them scattered all over the floor, getting their covers torn off from being stepped on, getting PEED on at least once (they sleep in hammocks, and they're both still pretty young. Bedwetting is easier in that you just toss the whole bed in the wash, and harder in that then you have to mop) - no more!

EVERY book, on the shelf or not (because they have so many that just taking away the ones on the floor wouldn't matter) is getting boxed up for the next 7 days, at which point we'll discuss the matter.

With any luck, this will also help them find something else to do after bedtime other than sneak out of bed and start reading (and leaving all the books on the floor).

In other news, I'm also tired of seeing toys and games all over everywhere. EVERY broken toy is getting tossed, and half the stuff on the floor as well, whatever's not worth saving. (Ana ran away and hid in my mom's closet at this point. This is because Ana is a brat, but I used to hide in my closet when upset, so I try to forgive her.) I AM SO TIRED OF THIS.

Comments

[akamine_chan]

*pets you*

[conuly]

Of course, Ana called her mom and went "CONNIE IS MAKING US THROW EVERYTHING OUT!!!!!"

Uh, no. Just the mixed up puzzle pieces, the paper doll scraps (and the paper dolls on the floor - if you care about it, you put it away, Ana!), and one game that got in the crossfire after Ana acted like a brat and refused to throw something away and then went "Well, I don't even LIKE that game!"

Stop!!!

[elenbarathi.livejournal.com]

Ack! I hope I'm not too late to explain this is not a good plan. The fundamental question here is, do you believe that children can own property in their own right, or do you believe that children own nothing, save by the sufferance of the adults who own the space in which they live?

This is a crucial point, because if you say you believe the first, but act as if you believe the second, you will be setting an example of hypocrisy that may well permanently affect your relationship with these children.

Those books are not yours. Those toys are not yours. I'm sure you did give a lot of them to the girls, but they were gifts, not loans, and a lot of those things were given to them by other people. The fact that you're tired of seeing a mess doesn't signify - would someone who was tired of seeing your mess have the right to take away your things, and throw away those he considered worthless? How about if he was a lot bigger, stronger and louder than you, and owned the house you were living in, and might hurt you if you tried to stop him?

You see the point here. Oh yes, I know very well the frustration of living with an egregiously messy, disorganized child with far too much stuff in far too small a space. But before you act on your negative emotions, think about your principles, and about what lessons you want to teach these girls. Are peoples' feelings more important than material items, or are they not? Do bigger stronger people have more basic rights, or do they not? Are the boundaries of smaller, weaker people to be respected, or are they not? And when a person loses her temper and says hurtful, unfair things, what is proper for her to do about it?

Re: Stop!!!

[conuly]

The books, in fact, are mine, a point I'm very clear on every time I let them have one on extended loan. In fact, I said it again just this morning. I want those books back in good (or at least usable) condition, and that means they can't be stepped on until the covers come off, can't be a table for a glass of water, and can't be directly under the hammock at bedtime lest we have an incident.

Furthermore, the point isn't the mess, but the absolute destructiveness of what are, in fact, my books.

[elenbarathi.livejournal.com]

Okay; that's fair enough; if they don't treat your books properly, you have every right to take them away and not loan them any more, or to set specific conditions on your loaning them. I don't loan my books or DVDs to the children I look after, because they're not careful enough with them - I'll bring them to share, but then I take them home with me.

The toys and games are not yours, though, and you say that it was your threat to get rid of everything you thought "not worth saving" that caused Ana to hide in a closet. You're mad, and you're saying she's doing it because she's a brat, but stop and think: picture her 10 years from now, hiding in a closet from someone a lot bigger who's threatening to trash her stuff, and who's saying it's "because she's a bitch". What feeling goes with that picture?

Children learn what they live, Connie. Having a fit and throwing out their things will not teach them to be neat; what it will teach them is that they can't trust you to respect their rights when you get angry. I'm sure it's true that they have 10 times more stuff than they need, and much of it is broken junk to the adult eye; a weeding-out is probably long overdue. But it's still their stuff, broken junk though it be. Don't throw their stuff out. You wouldn't like someone to do it to you, so don't do it to them.

I would suggest scooping all the random stuff into boxes and bags, with sincere assurances that nothing is getting thrown out without their consent, and then go through the containers together, one at a time, and put things away, or throw out what's really worthless. Amazing how much more willing to throw things away a child becomes when she is the one who has to sort through all those beads and broken crayons.

The underlying source of the problem is, as usual, the adults, who are the main ones hauling in all this stuff - either because they're buying it, or because they're passing on their own mathoms - and then (erroneously) assuming that the children have the ability to cope with it.

They don't. Children don't enjoy mess, but unless an adult takes an active hand in teaching them how to take care of things, and enforces rules on how things are to be handled, mess is the inevitable result. It's not fair to the children, to blame them for not treating things right when they have not been taught how to do so - and "teaching them" does not mean just "telling them".

Is there a rule about No Books On The Floor, which has been enforced every time an adult in the house sees a book on the floor? If not, then no adult in the house has a right to complain when books are left on the floor, because it hasn't been against the rules to leave them there. (A rule that isn't consistently enforced isn't a real rule, and will not be considered as one.) It's certainly fair and reasonable to make and enforce such a rule, preferably starting right now, but it's not fair to make it retroactive, and be mad at them for not following it before it was made.

[jillianfish.livejournal.com]

Jumping into the convo here, hope that's okay. I agree that if a rule has never been implemented, a person can not be punished for breaking it, but I do think that children need to learn to respect possessions, both theirs and others. If that means taking away possessions until they realize the value of them, then that may be a valuable lesson to learn, even if it only occurs once. Children of a certain age are perfectly capable of understanding how to play with a toy properly and put it away afterwards. How not to break it, or ruin it. It is only when they are not punished for mistreating a toy or a book that they begin to think that behavior is okay.

[conuly]

Actually, what got tossed in the end - the puzzles that were scattered, the bumblebee game missing half its pieces - are also not theirs. They're family possessions. I don't even like having them upstairs because that means that we all have to hike up there if we want to play a game of cards.

When it comes right down to it, really, the nieces don't really have many private possessions. They have their special dolls (which would never be up for donation anyway) and their toy cars (ditto, right up until Ana got tired of hers and decided to give it to the kid next door), Evangeline's toy kitchen and Ana's desk, their bikes and scooters, and everything else is shared. The grown-ups don't share their clothes, but they wear each others' now, and about the only reason I stopped playing with the wooden blocks is some children got wood glue all over them and we haven't yet replaced them. Half the stuff on the floor doesn't belong in their room anyway - it belongs in the public area of the kitchen, because it's really for everybody to share. (And also so the pieces don't get lost.)

Edit: Oh, and their stuffed animals, the ones that aren't mine, are shared between the two of them but not with the grown-ups. And the paper dolls as well, so they do have a few more things which are shared between them but not us.

(And now that I'm thinking about it, some of the dolls are mine-mine. Not on loan, but the nieces actually snuck down and took my orange bear! Oh, that's grating sometimes, but when I tried taking it back she cried and Jenn backed her up on it and it was hard to stay firm against BOTH of them. And I got that bear the Christmas after 9/11, too.)

And yes, there is a rule about no picture books on the floor. We really don't have any other bookcases, but the nieces are lucky enough to have one of the few we do have (and that *is* their bookcase, which is terrible because it's shoddy, but at least nobody can complain if they put stickers on it) because picture books are insanely expensive.

[jillianfish.livejournal.com]

I may be a little late, but I wanted to share something that one of my mother's friends did with her kids. After dinner (or before, depending on the schedule) the boys were supposed to pick up all the toys that they had played with that day. The floor of their room was supposed to be clean and clear. The next day, when they went to school, anything left on the floor, she would pick up and put in a box on a high shelf that was eventually donated to charity. If the boys asked where the toys went, she told them she threw them away. Money, shoes, toys, etc. Anything not overly expensive, of course. It worked remarkably well. They learned very quickly that she wasn't kidding and that their possessions would be gone if they weren't put up properly.

An alternative idea, for when you give the books back, is to only allow them a few at a time. When I was young, I was taken to the library once a week to check out books. I could only get a certain amount, so I had to choose which ones I wanted carefully. It taught me to take care of the books, and to really enjoy them. So after taking them away for a week, maybe tell each girl she can have 5 books every week. It will cut down on what they read but it will also cut down on accidents and messes involving books.

[elenbarathi.livejournal.com]

I'm sure it did work remarkably well in the short term, at least as far as teaching them that leaving 'their' possessions out in 'their' room would be punished. If the single goal is to have the floor of the room be clean at all times, without regard to the feelings or the character-development of the children in question, then yes, an admirably effective solution.

Basically, those children had no possessions, and they had no room either. Put yourself in their place: the room that is called "yours" may be invaded at any time by another person, who may take anything in there and get rid of it at any time: how do you feel about that? Safe, secure, loved, respected? Do you have a warm feeling of trust for the maker of this arbitrary "rule", especially knowing that it may be arbitrarily changed at any time, and you will have no right to protest?

I highly recommend the books of Alice Miller, especially For Your Own Good: Hidden Cruelty inn Child-Rearing and the Roots of Violence (http://www.amazon.com/Your-Own-Good-Child-Rearing-Violence/dp/0374522693/ref=sr_1_3?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1284073841&sr=1-3) for an in-depth professional explanation of why this sort of thing is cruel and wrong.

Note, I would not have a problem with a consistently-enforced rule that stuff left strewn about would go into the Box and have to be earned back by extra chores. The stuff is still theirs; it's still in the house; they can get it back when they want it... but leaving stuff strewn around makes extra work for someone else, so it's only fair they pay back that extra work with some of their own.

[jillianfish.livejournal.com]

I agree that perhaps depriving children of a private room of their own, with private possessions may be seen as cruel, however I strongly believe that a laissez-faire attitude to child raising may hurt children more than we realize. If you give a child no boundaries, how are they supposed to deal with a world that regularly forces them to follow rules that they may not have a say in? Children are not small adults, they do not have the same rights as small adults merely because they are not as capable of taking care of themselves as adults. It is a parents job to prepare their children for adulthood. Adulthood, as much as we may not like it, is a series of rules and guidelines that we must follow for the good of ourselves and society. Thus, children need to learn that there are rules and that the rules must be followed. If you have an unregistered gun in your house, regardless of whether its "yours" I would want the police to come into "your house" and take it. Sorry, but that's for my safety as well as society's. Also, in regards to parents being monarchs, so to speak, well, it's their house, and it's their rules. If we choose to live in America or France or Sweden or China, or hell, even North Korea then it is expected that we follow the rules set forth by the government. If children are to grow up to be well adjusted adults, they need to understand that life isn't always fair and that you are expected to follow rules set forth by a governing body, be it a president, a parliament or a parent. If those rules are slightly chafing, well, I'm sorry.

[conuly]

If we choose to live in America or France or Sweden or China, or hell, even North Korea then it is expected that we follow the rules set forth by the government.

Where you live (especially if it's North Korea) isn't really much of a matter of choice.

If children are to grow up to be well adjusted adults, they need to understand that life isn't always fair and that you are expected to follow rules set forth by a governing body, be it a president, a parliament or a parent. If those rules are slightly chafing, well, I'm sorry.

Not really a good comparison, though (unless you're in North Korea) because we choose our legislators and public opinion has some real influence.

[conuly]

o after taking them away for a week, maybe tell each girl she can have 5 books every week.

That's insane. Ana can easily put away five books a day. I wrangle more than that in 20 minutes of storytime. We have six BOXES of books all packed up now, and that's just the picture books. I didn't bother with the chapter books, which also aren't in their room (mostly). (I also found several library books and two books from Ana's last year's teacher in the pile. Ugh.)

Nah, we did agree on a new system that's easier than "Wait until Connie blows up and takes back her stuff". It's "If Connie sees four or fewer books on the floor, they go back downstairs. If there's more than that, we start packing stuff up again."

Once everybody was calmed down it was easy to find a solution that should work for all of us.