Where do you keep your children’s school bags at home?
When I was a kid I remember that my dad threw my school bag outside the house, and shouted “How many times do I need to tell you this?! Don’t leave it in the hallway!! PUT YOUR BAG AWAY!!!”
That must have been when I was still 7 or 8 years old, I used to drop the bag in the hallway and started playing. Sometimes I picked up the bag and threw it into my room just before dad came back and got away with it, but carrying the heavy bag upstairs every day was never my thing.
Well, now I am a parent and I am picking up the children’s bags, clothes, dirty tissues, bits of scrap paper, a dirty sock (just one), used towels, you name it… I got fed up with it and I needed to think of some way to solve the whole problem…
All I needed to do was two things:
1] Placing a basket where my children usually drop their bags
2] Telling them that the basket is for their school bags.
… and voilà!
The children’s everyday behaviour didn’t need changing, but became a tidy-up action! I am happy and they are happy, too!
Hate the System, Not the Kids!
