Battle of Wills

Today, I had one objective, to clean our house. This included having the kids clean their room. I know, I am such a mean mom! So, we had a late start to the morning and the kids finished breakfast around 9:30. I then told them to head on up and clean their rooms. I added the fact that they would not get to come downstairs until the cleaning was done. My version of clean was nothing on the floor. So, the kids needed to put any blankets, pillows, or stuffed animals on their beds. Any toys needed to go into bins of their choice. Well, my kids being themselves chose to play. They played and played and played. Their rooms were not cleaned until 4:00. Crazy right? They chose playing over eating! Not to worry, they always have plenty to eat, and the cleaning took about 20 minutes, so they had the choice to quickly clean up and eat at any time. But, they played and played with the occasional sneaking downstairs to seek attention. I just redirected them back upstairs until it was done.