Sunday, December 7, 2008

How to Get Kids to Clean Up

I have figured out a foolproof way to get my kids to clean!
1) Dress up in costumes. Pictured here are the king (Cameron) and the prince (Sir Matthew, going for a pirate prince look I guess)
2) Talk with a fake accent. British preferred.
3) Address the children as "Sire" and "Sir Matthew."
4) Integrate cleaning directions into story line.
To illustrate:
"Sire! I have just learned that the fair princess of Agatibelle will be coming to our castle this very night! We must hide our jewels and swords, lest the Agatibellians plunder the castle! Quick, sire, pick up those Superstructs and place them in yonder basket! And Sir Matthew, I beg thee to pick up the toy cars!"
The castle was clean in record time, although the king followed the orders much better than Sir Matthew, who was repeatedly noted to create messes instead of clean them. We suspect he may be working for the Agatibellians.

5 comments:

Grandma Linda said...

I had no problem at all getting Sir Matthew to help in the cleaning (see photo with vacuum in previous post).

kimbill16 said...

Brilliant! I love this story. Those Agatibellians are so sneaky . . .

Sharon said...

I think next time I'm going to throw in some ogres for good measure.

Anonymous said...

I never thought of that! BRILLIANT! I'm totally trying that now.

Sharon said...

Christy, you'll have to let me know if the technique works with older kids. I'll be totally psyched if it does!