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

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.