Soliciting Advice....

Shortly before the start of the school year, I added "make your bed" to the pretty short list of jobs that the boys have to do. So, they have been doing it for about a month.

Doesn't that sound great....my boys make their own beds before they go to school in the moring?!?!

Yeah great.....really great...except for the problem is that they are really, really lousy at it. I mean REALLY lousy!!


I am not a neat freak, in fact, I would probably fall closer to the opposite end of that spectrum. I really want to be a neat-freak, I want my house to look like a model house all of the time, but for some reason, my natural tendancy is to leave stuff laying around....like all of my stuff. My mom is really neat and clean. The house I grew up in was always immaculate, except for mine and Jen's rooms. You can show up at my mom and dad's house at any time and it looks like they were waiting for company. I'm sure you are thinking, "yeah, but she doesn't have 4 little kids", but you'll have to take my word that it wouldn't matter. It is just part of who she is. My friend, Cathy is also an AWESOME housekeeper. She was one of our few babysitters when the boys were babies. We would get home, the kids would be asleep and my house would be cleaner and more organized than when we left. She is really good! I want to be like that!

Now that I've established that I am not a neat freak, there is one room that I *do* like to keep clean and that is the boys' room. Maybe it is because it is one of the only rooms in our house that is actually kind of decorated, or maybe because their room can't be "a little bit messy"...it is either neat and clean or it looks like it was destroyed by a tornado. Or, maybe it bothers me because it is a reminder that my mom's neat genes didn't skip a generation and land on my kids. But, for whatever reason, it bothers me when that room is a mess.

Since there are 3 boys in there, it doesn't take much to make it a mess. But at the same time, their room is pretty simple so, it also doesn't take much to make it clean. If the beds are made, the 'stuffed friends' are on their beds, their treasures (JUNK!) are in their toy boxes and the laundry is in the basket, the room is pretty much clean.

Here is how their room looked after I spent 5 minutes in it this morning....with Charlie "helping".

I want them to make their beds and I really think that they should be making their beds, but I have 2 problems. The first problem is that they are 6 and obviously, they cannot make them like I do. That shouldn't bother me, but I'm being honest...it does. My second problem is that they are not even doing as well as they could. But, mornings already come complete with a lot of nagging by me about getting dressed, putting shoes on, putting coats on and packing their bags. I don't think any of us can handle additional nagging. So, they are getting away with doing a crappy job with very little effort.

I realize that this doesn't happen very often, but I'm soliciting advice(!). I'm willing to take any suggestions except the "screw it, a made bed isn't important". Maybe this shouldn't bother me , but it does. If you have some insight and you are a neat person; or have raised neat kids; or raised messy kids, but see where you messed up; or are TRYING to raise neat kids, HELP!!

Do I suck it up and not say anything and let them keep "attempting" to make thier beds? Will they eventually figure it out and start to do a better job? At this point, that doesn't seem likely.

Do I re-make their beds after they go to school?

Or, do I just drop this whole thing and go back to making their beds myself and try again next summer when they have more time to do re-do's?

Thanks if you read this all the way through, and really BIG thanks if you have some "words of wisdom" to share.