What to Expect the Toddler Years (145 page)

Keep chores fun.
Supply placemats with child appeal when you ask him to set the table for lunch, decorate the hamper with a favorite character (“Honey, please give your dirty clothes to Mickey Mouse”), have him pick up his toys to the rhythms of his favorite songs (see page 419 for more ways to enliven picking up).

Make chores a family affair.
The family that cleans (or cooks or gardens) together gets more done and has a better time doing it. As long as the division of labor is fair and equitable (jobs are apportioned and assigned according to age and ability), this kind of togetherness encourages children to continue to do their share as they grow up.

Keep your demands reasonable.
Even if your toddler seems enthusiastic about helping out, don’t push him to do more than he’s capable of or willing to do. If he’s overloaded with responsibilities now, he may burn out early and become resentful of helping out later—when his ungrudging help will be much more important.

Don’t grumble yourself.
If you moan and groan every time you have to pick up a dirty dish or push a vacuum cleaner, you’re sending a very clear message to your toddler: Chores are the pits. Instead, try to make them less disagreeable for you by playing your favorite music or whistling your favorite tune as you work. Or, if you hate housework so much that you can’t stop grumbling, at least keep your grumbles to yourself.

“My daughter takes out every toy when she’s playing in her room, throws them around, and won’t put them away. Isn’t it time she started keeping her room clean, or at least cleaning it up after she’s finished playing?”

Clean is in the eyes of the beholder—and what a toddler beholds is usually very different from what her parents view. When you look around your toddler’s room, you see a helter-skelter jumble of strewn toys and scattered books, crumpled paper, and broken crayons. When your toddler looks around her room, she sees a sooth-ingly cozy oasis in an otherwise forbid-dingly tidy home. It’s possible, in fact, that the clutter that you find maddening brings her comfort and pleasure.

Cleaning up can be almost as easy as ABC when toy bins are toddler-accessible.

There are a couple of good reasons why most toddlers and preschoolers are happier in a messier room. For one, being surrounded by their possessions, so that they can touch them, feel them, and commune with them, makes them feel more secure. For another, toddler play is often on-going. When your toddler leaves her game of teddy-bear hospital to pick up a puzzle that’s caught her eye, it doesn’t mean she’s done playing doctor. Putting the bears away before they’re finished with their treatment—which may well go on for several days—unfairly interrupts her fantasy.

But just because your toddler doesn’t see the benefits of keeping her room or play space clean doesn’t mean there aren’t any. Toys that are put away can’t be tripped over, stepped on and broken, or end up in that netherworld under the bed; books that are shelved are less likely to be torn, crushed, or otherwise damaged; puzzles and games that are returned to their proper place are more likely to keep all their pieces (at least for a while). And learning to pick up isn’t just good for your toddler’s possessions, it’s good for her, too. It will prepare her to meet the expectations of preschool, and later elementary school, and, like any skill she learns, help her to feel good about herself.

If you introduced her to a clean-up routine earlier (see page 57), she’s already got a head start. But whether you did or not, you can help her to pick up the picking-up habit now by:

Limiting clean-ups.
It’s possible to clean up after a toddler all day long and still be faced with a mess by nightfall. But many parents find it’s much more practical to let the messes fall where they may during the day and wait until day’s end to start picking up the pieces. That compromise gives a toddler important freedom of play; she can come and go from her games without fearing that they’re going to be cleaned up from under her.

By the time a toddler is nearing three, however, it’s a good idea to begin encouraging her to put away her playthings as she finishes with them. When you’re playing with her, make a point of putting away the game or toy together when play time is up. This concept is especially important if your toddler’s play space is in a shared area of the house and/or when dealing with puzzles, games, and other toys with numerous small pieces or bits. You can’t expect perfect compliance at this stage, but you can instill an ideal that will, hopefully, become a reality sometime in the future.