Experiment, Day Two

[tiredmommy]

I decided last night, after being confronted with Duckie leaving her dirty clothes on the bathroom floor yet again, that I would see how long it takes her to put her laundry where it belongs. She hates to be nagged, yet, will often not do what she's supposed to do without repeated prompts from her parents.

The clothes stayed there overnight, throughout the morning and after school. She took her shower this evening and left today's clothes on the floor with the pile from yesterday. And this evening she kicked the pile out of the bathroom and into the hallway. They will sit there.

I wonder how long it will take her to bring them downstairs to the laundry room?

 

[InsaneCdn]

It will take... until something she wants to wear is not washed yet.
Trust me. I was there... typical teen stuff.

 

[HaoZi]

Likely when she runs out of clothes and asks you why she doesn't have any to wear and needs them right now.

 

[tiredmommy]

InsaneCdn... I understand that it's typical teen, but she's 11. LOL! I imagine she's also confused: She leaves her clothes on the floor and then they show up again all clean and folded and put away. It's pretty magical, when you think about it.

HaoZi~ it will take awhile for her to run out of clothes, though I suspect her faves will be dirty.

 

[Star*]

You're too nice - We had a 2 day rule. AND IN THE BAG THEY WENT. Favorite or not. If they were your favorite - you really should have taken better care of them. I have no idea ......wait ------HOW long did you let them lay on the floor???? TWO DAYS? WHat's the RULE????? OMGarschk......COULD THEY.....IS IT POSSIBLE......THAT I.....YOUR MOTHER.........THE MOTHER OF AN 11 YEAR OLD HAD TO BEND AT THE HIPS TO....NOo 000000000000 say it isn't so.........and PICK....UP.....YOUR......FAAAAAAAAAAAVORITE CLOTHES? NOW they are gone..GONE I TELL YOU......GONE!!!!!!!!!! .........

Yeah something like that. And no - they dind't get returned - and you can't imagine how quickly NIKEs and JORDANS get put away when THEY go into a bag.

(precious pup snicker)

 

[DammitJanet]

TM, you are like my mom was on this issue. I am not saying that in a bad way either. I think it is a parent of a single child thing.

I was a full grown adult when I figured out there wasnt a clean clothes fairy. I didnt actually take my clothes off and leave them in the bathroom but my issue was that I had a hamper in my closet and magically they went in the hamper and then they came out and appeared on the hangers in my closet or in my drawers. I never gave it a thought. And it wasnt like I didnt have chores either. My chore was to clean my bathroom completely and to put dishes in the dishwasher and then remove them and put them away when clean. Yeah, I was asked a lot...lol. I have no idea why I never got it that clothes were being done by someone. It just never occurred to me.

Fast forward to when I moved in with Tony. I kept throwing out dirty clothes in the closet and they kept stacking up. Finally one day Tony asked me when I planned to go to the laundry mat to do laundry. I looked at him in awe and said...do laundry? I told him that if you put the laundry in the closet someone would come get it but obviously they were a bit busy and hadnt gotten to us yet. He laughed so hard at me. He thought I was kidding. But I wasnt. Finally he figured out what had happened and he had to walk me down to the laundry mat with baskets and teach me how to do laundry. Needless to say my kids knew how to do laundry by the time they could reach the tops of the machines.

 

[KTMom91]

Miss KT learned at a very young age that if it wasn't in the basket, it didn't get washed. I laugh when I think about this little bitty 2 year old, toddling across the room to put her clothes in the basket.

 

[Wiped Out]

I love your plan TM! easy child/difficult child actually started doing her own laundry at age 11. She was complaining one night that something wasn't washed that she wanted. I told her to start doing her own laundry and told her one of her cousins had been doing his since 8 (true story). I showed her how to use the washing machine and after that she loved doing her own laundry.

on the other hand, difficult child...he would just pick up the dirty clothes and wear them if we let him. Sigh...

 

[flutterby]

If the clothes weren't in the basket, they didn't get washed. I was even nice enough to let them know that I was going to be doing laundry and to make sure their clothes were in the basket.

When easy child was 11, he came downstairs yelling that he didn't have anything clean to wear for school. After reminding him that they weren't in the basket so they didn't get washed, he asked what he was supposed to do. I told him he should wash them. He asked how much he was going to get paid. I laughed out loud. He stomped back upstairs.

 

[tiredmommy]

And now she has left her pjs in a heap on her bedroom floor.

Game on.

 

[AnnieO]

When the kids lived weeks with bio and weekends with us, I'd go collect them, wash, fold, put the folded ones on their beds.

Until their piles for TWO DAYS were bigger than mine and husband's for a week. Made them start taking them downstairs and sorting. This also happened about the time we got residential. If they didn't make it down into the proper baskets by Friday night, I didn't wash them.

Then Onyxx started buying inappropriate stuff she didn't want me seeing, so she started doing her own. After a few months of lots of gray (used-to-be-white) tank tops, she figured out that you can't just wash it all together. (Someday, she'll realize that washing jeans with bras is not a good idea, but it's not my problem right now... She gets 3 new bras a year. That's it. She knows it.)

Jett "forgot"... And then would CRY when he didn't have clean pants because I refused to retrieve them from his room. Bio's idea of when to wash clothing and mine do NOT match. Me? Jeans - wear two days - one IF they got something nasty on them like mud, three if I could still smell fabric softener (happens a LOT with my jeans). Undies, one day. Bras, probably two, depending. Shirts, only one because of sweating. Bio's idea? If you put it on, it's dirty, even if it gets taken off within 5 minutes.

My biggest issue was Jett having 20 pairs of underwear and running out on a regular basis. UMMMM??? One pair a day, right? Well, no. He'd put on a clean pair after his shower, a new clean pair in the morning, and another new clean pair after school. Three a day?!

This weekend, he informed husband he had done all of his chores (one of which is wash, dry, fold & put away his laundry). This morning, I pointed out to him, "Hmm, looks like you didn't get your chores done LAST WEEKEND, hmm?" He actually TOLD husband he had done his laundry. On Saturday. (I had the washer and dryer tied up ALL DAY Saturday... Onyxx on Sunday... No, he did not.)

As long as they're not in anyone else's way, let 'em sit. If they're in the hallway? Fair game for the garbage can. And I'd put them in one she SEES, hanging out the side.

 

[DDD]

been there done that. I'm assuming that she totally understands the laundry rules. Most of my kids took decent care of their clothes and learned to do their laundry somewhere around ten to twelve. GFGmom, however, did not get it...heck, she still doesn't get it, lol. I left what was in their bedroom in their bedroom. I opted to take what was left in other parts of the house and place in big paperbags in the garage. Oh yeah, in Florida, the mildew capital of the world, lol. Did it solve all the problems? Nope. But it did get their attention and make them accept that our home wasn't going to be cluttered due to their laziness. DDD

 

[InsaneCdn]

I wonder how long it will take her to bring them downstairs to the laundry room?

I don't even like making that trip everytime there's a couple of things for the wash... We all have laundry hampers. If it's not in the hamper, it's not "in the wash". Maybe you could compromise on where she has to take it to? Could be an opportunity for problem solving?

 

[tiredmommy]

Insane~ She's already welcome to place them in her basket/hamper and run them down as it fills. That's what husband and I do.

Also, she's learning to sort and will be learning how to operate the machines this summer. My big concern is that she'll run up my water bill by washing only her stuff in small loads.

Now, in all fairness to the Duckster, she has been pretty sick this week and is really having a hard time staying on task due to the extra steroids she's on. I won't throw the clothes out. Yet.

 

[Lothlorien]

Haha. If she's anything like my daughter you'll be waiting for months

 

[AnnieO]

TM... If she is anything like I was as a young adult (as a teen, I had to do family laundry, so this doesn't apply)... I did mine in the fewest number of loads possible, without mixing whites and darks.

MY kids will stuff everything they can get into the washer at once. Jett doesn't care if his light-colored stuff turns grayish. I've had to stop him a few times, when the washer is SO FULL it starts to WALK. Ugh.

 

[tiredmommy]

Ah... but Duckie likes to look good. She wouldn't want to ruin her stuff.

 

[InsaneCdn]

I am probably going to be thankful that we use a front-load washer... the kind that selects water level automatically...

 

[Hound dog]

Most kids? It lasts until they run out of clothes to wear. But even then you have to make sure they don't just pick out what they want to wear and actually clean up all the laundry from their piles.

I tried this with katie when she was living with us pregnant with Alex and Kayla was a baby. Now remember, she was an adult 20 yrs old. No reason for her not to pick up after herself and Kayla. Didn't work, at all. She'd sit in the same outfit for heaven knows how long........and let kayla do the same. Until I couldn't stand the stink of either of them and I'd lose it.

Now you realize this is only stage one of the laundry wars, right? Next stage is the small loads for emergency outfits. Then it's the clothes sit in the dryer or pile up in the laundry room because they're too lazy to put them away.

Too many dirty clothes that have sat too long or too many clean clothes that blocked the use of the laundry room for anyone else........suddenly made those clothes disappear, as in bagged up and tossed out with the trash. If you have so many clothes you can just leave them lying around everywhere, then you just plain have too many clothes.

That worked better than any nagging or anything else I tried.

Good luck with stage one.

 

[tiredmommy]

Laundry Wars.... a new reality show. Look for it this spring!