My Buttercup has inherited a trait from me...not a very flattering one, but she definitely got it from me. She is a PACKRAT! She does not want to get rid of anything, and as a result, her room looks like it was hit by Hurricane Ike! (Not quite Hurricane Katrina.) Today there is no school, so I told her last night that we would be cleaning her room today. Her response was something like this...
"There is nothing wrong with my room. I like it just the way it is. Why do you have to care what MY room looks like?"
Well, to be honest, I didn't really know how to respond to that. The fact still remains that her room needs to be cleaned, so I'm not sure if I should just bulldoze in and tell her I can do it with her input, or without and then give her a different room of the house to clean if she doesn't want to help in her room, OR if I should tell her she have other privileges WHEN her room is clean...I'm just not sure what to do. I really don't want a huge battle over this. If she didn't share a room with Sunshine, maybe I wouldn't care so much what it looks like, but as it is, I have to see it everyday. And, maybe, just maybe, it drives me nuts because I know it reflects my own weaknesses...and maybe, just maybe, it's just easier for me to deal with HER junk than MY junk.
So, should I force the issue, or back off? That is the question.
Friday, September 26, 2008
That is the Question
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3 comments:
If you figure this one out...let me know! I am constantly at a loss on what to do with my 8 yr. olds bedroom. I get so sick of looking at it everyday. I can empathize with my mother now...my room was a wreck!
I can't really talk... my room was always a mess.
I remember being asked--nay, told--by mom to clean my room, so I took all the blankets in the room and laid them out on top of everything on the floor and tried to smooth it out to look like the floor; and it really did work... until mom came in and wondered why the floor had risen by about a foot.
It's often true that what we dislike most about another person is the fault we see in ourselves.
Anyway... I may end up eating my words once my baby grows up, but instead of threats or warnings, could she be persuaded with the promise of rewards (both immediate and future)?
The immediate reward could be inviting friends for a sleep-over or (in teaching the joy of service) the opportunity to take Sunshine to one of her own favorite spots and show her (and you) why she likes it so much.
The future reward would be a greater appreciation for a clean living-space; tell her about your days of living with a roommate in college--horror stories of messy roomies and happy stories of clean roomies.
As for why you care about what HER room looks like... I'm just as stumped as you are, and I can only imagine what knots my tongue would be making inside my brain if I had to try to answer it there, on the spot.
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