Mormon Parenting: How to get little kids to clean up

When we had four kids under the age of 5, our biggest problem (other than sleep deprivation and somebody constantly crying) seemed to be that our house was always a mess. Wishing that our little ones would put their toys and clothes away was a little like wishing for spring in Utah this year. It seemed as though it would just never happen.

We had tried everything to get our messy little kids to clean up after themselves or at least to put something away once in a while. Getting mad didn't really work. Getting really mad didn't either. We soon realized that when we reacted with anger we were only teaching them how to get mad at their kids. We tried reasoning, cajoling and bribing. Nothing worked.

Once we thought we'd found the solution by putting their left-out toys and clothes on their beds, so they couldn't climb in until it was all put away, but they didn't even notice.

Without us there to supervise, all that stuff just made them feel warm and cozy while they slept. We had even tried keeping all their clothes and toys in our big utility room instead of in their bedrooms, so all the mess would be confined to one place.

That didn't work either.

Then one day a neighbor who knew how frustrated I (Richard) was with my messy kids gave me the best preschool method ever. He told me to get a big laundry bag and draw or sew a "face" on it, with the drawstring opening as the mouth. Introduce "Gunny Bag" to the kids, and tell them that he lives in the top of the hall closet and sometimes (you never know when) comes down and EATS any toys and clothes that are left out. Then he comes back on Saturday morning and "regurgitates" the stuff.

We liked the idea. The whole process was explained in a family meeting, and we all agreed that if their toys or clothes got "eaten" again the next week, their stuff would make someone's day at the Deseret Industries.

So I (Linda) got out the sewing machine and sewed some eyes and a nose on a laundry bag. When we introduced Gunny Bag, the kids formed an immediate love-hate relationship. They loved the fun of scrambling to put their things away, but they hated that he might eat their stuff.

The change was wonderful. We could come home and instead of the old pattern of getting angry and lecturing the kids about neatness and spending a half hour supervising their forced cleanup, we now had a fun, new pattern where one of us, standing amidst a sea of left-out toys and clothes, put a cupped hand behind one of our ears and proclaimed, "I think I hear some scratching in the closet. I think Gunny Bag is coming,"