How to make a child clean up after himself: where to store toys

"We went home 15 minutes ago", - a friendsends me a photo of the nursery, in which there is literally no sex in sight. It covers one million toys: lego pieces, small robots, bigger robots, small toy cars, big cars, fragments of the railway and God knows what else. I was silent in reply - my daughter is already grown up, so there is no such problem, I can not advise unfortunate Ira.Photo:GettyImagesThousands of mothers face the same problem – a terribly cluttered nursery. Heidi Hamm, a journalist and popular blogger, shares her experience of how she managed to cope with this scourge. The method is quite original, it will not suit everyone, but if it helps someone, we will be glad. Heidi said that for several years she spent every evening cleaning the nursery. “I wish someone could count how many hours of my life were wasted on cleaning up toys. I am sure: a lot.” Heidi, like any of us, likes it when the house is clean. She feels better and more confident when there is order around. Cleaning has never been a burden for her. But then children came along… “I love them. I love them very much. They are amazing little people. But they just destroy cleanliness, and they don’t care. “How can you live in such a mess? There’s nowhere to put your feet!” I appealed to the children. - Yeah, right. A voice crying in the wilderness. “No, it’s fine here. We’re just playing hopscotch and jumping around.” One night, Heidi’s husband found her kneeling in the nursery. She was collecting Lego pieces, sorting them by color. “Why don’t you just close the door?” the husband asked his exhausted wife. “It was like a light went on in my head,” Heidi says. “I thought he was going to join me and help me collect the damn Lego. But he said those seven words.” Heidi got up and closed the door. From that moment on, her life changed forever. “There’s a lot of talk these days about how important it is for parents to remember to take care of themselves. That’s right. It’s so easy to lose yourself in the midst of taking care of everyone else. But yourself? You need time for yourself, and you don’t have it,” Heidi says. Or maybe taking care of yourself is easier than it seems? For example, hiding a chocolate bar and eating it all yourself. Or turning on cartoons for the kids and drinking coffee in peace. Hot is important. Self-care is sending the kids to bed and cuddling up with your husband on the couch in front of the TV. Self-care is closing the door. “The kids clean their room once a week now. By themselves. Without me. The rest of the time it’s chaos. But I can definitely live with that,” Heidi laughs. Yes, unfortunately, her method won’t work for those whose children’s room is also a living room and a shared bedroom. But you can “close the door” even in this case. Close your eyes and go to the kitchen for your coffee. Hot.