Hide and Go Seek Clean-Up

Sometimes it’s the Only Way.

You know how daycare teachers get all the kids to clean up at the end of the day? And you know how we’re supposed to do that at home too? Yeah… I can’t manage to do that. It’s way more exhausting to force my kids to clean up than it is to do it myself. I promise I will teach them better habits when they are older! But somehow saying, “Guess what?! Once we all clean up, you get to go straight to bed!” just hasn’t worked for me. So here’s how I have actually managed to clean up at the end of the day.

Clean-Up Hide and Seek

• I say something like, “I’ll stay here and count! You guys go hide upstairs!”
• They all run off to hide, and while counting loudly, I start furiously tidying. It’s amazing how much can be accomplished 20 or 30 seconds at a time. Sometimes the kids even ask for more time to hide!
• Once I count down, I keep cleaning during a long, drawn out, “Ready or nooooot, here I cooooome!”). Then I go find them.
• Finding the kids is a great opportunity to clean up the rooms I am searching. Kids are pretty obvious about their hiding places. I can walk around saying, “Are they in the closet?!” While actually cleaning up something else. Of course they’re not in the closet. They’re hiding under the covers… again.
• Once they are found, the game starts again! Once I finish cleaning up the room I counted in, I tell them to hide somewhere else while I count in the room I need to clean. The best part is, unlike any other time I am trying to tidy, they are not messing up something else while I do it, because they’re hiding! I can transform my home in a 15 minute game of hide and seek, and the kids are happy!

Note: Make sure to break up the skewers before throwing them out, or you will end up with a hole in the bag and garbage water all over the bottom of your garbage bin.