I have found the coolest site for getting your household in order not to mention other areas :-)...www.flylady.net

You all may have heard of her and this site, but I just discovered it a couple of weeks ago and at first it's hard to navigate, but after subscibing and getting the digest and email, I have found it's terrific!!! Below is an example of how to get your kids to clean their room...I LOVE it! Mine's grown now, but sure wish I'd had this advice....

Dear Friends:

Many of you over the years have sent in requests for helping your children establish routines. I believe that everyone needs routines and zones. As adults our zones involve the whole house. We can teach our children all about BabySteps and Zones by taking their rooms and breaking them down into Zones. This is long but worth the read.

Years ago, I implemented zones when I realized that my kids were overwhelmed when I made the classic parenting mistake of sending my kids into "clean" their rooms without any real instruction from me. Then the tears that came when I went to check on them; they had done what they thought was clean and of course it was not what I thought. I realized that they feel the same way I do when a room seems out of control and I don't know where to start.

So we made zones. The floor, the desk, the dresser, the bed and the closet. We set a timer and they only had to work on one zone at a time. Instead of the overwhelming task of "go clean your room" we set the timer for focus only on the floor.

Next was to let them know what they needed to do with the items on the floor example: put the legos in the bucket, put the books on the shelf, put the crayons in the box.

When the tasks are broken down into manageable BABYSTEPS they can FLY too! Beating the timer was always the goal! They were able to see how fast they could really do what needed to be done and feel so proud of their accomplishment! Then you move on to the other "zones in their rooms and then they learn how to "clean" their room one area at a time plus they will see how little time it takes when they stay on top of it before it gets out of control. They will find that they like the order and the peace they feel with it.

This takes time, you have to lead by example and be patient. You can't expect a 10 year old that has lived with CHAOS in their room their whole life to change because you want them to. You will have to help declutter their rooms first and then slowly implement what your expectations are and teach them BabySteps. Give them praise for their efforts and be careful of negative reactions when you think they have not done something the way you would like it to be done. They are looking for you to be proud of them.

You must help your children declutter their rooms before you can teach them the zone way of taking care of their rooms. Once again decluttering can be done the same way that you have done it in your home. Do super fling boogies, hot spot fire drills, teach them about these and help them early on how to let go of things that are just taking up space that they don't love. Help them learn the difference of owning things because they bring you joy and just being surrounded by stuff that just takes up space, this will help them later in life not to fill their own homes with stuff. Teach them to let go of broken toys, teach them if they are so blessed with so many things that maybe they can bless some other children that are not so blessed.

Teach them the value of 15 minutes and keep your word. Set a timer for 15 minutes and work together, if you don't get as much done as you would like too, let it go and let them go. Try again tomorrow, set the timer for 15 minutes and go again. Let them see that it does not have to be torture. As SHE's we tend to hyper-focus and want to keep going, but your kids need to believe you when you tell them it is only 15 minutes. When they start to see what they can accomplish they will be more agreeable to jump in for 15 minutes.

I will be perfectly honest here, I have decluttered their rooms when they were not around to see it, things that I knew they no longer played with, books that were no longer read, coloring books that were full, broken crayons, dried up markers, a lot of what I decluttered were things they never noticed were gone, but they would have not considered giving up. I prefer to let them make their own choices but sometimes we have to rely on when Mom knows best. I would not recommend this for children over the age of 8 or 9, past this age kids have established a sense of personal ownership and most likely will notice things missing that the younger ones will not.

Now, you can take the zones in their rooms to the next level. Just as we have the whole the house broken down into zones for a month we can do the same for our kids and their rooms:

Week one can be the detail clean of the dresser. This means that you straighten the clothes in the drawers, get rid of the stained, torn, worn out clothes, the clothes that are too small and the clothes that never get worn because they don't like them. Detail dust the tops of the dresser by removing the things on top and really get it dusted from side to side and end to end. This can be done in 15 minutes once they understand how to do it and when to do it.

There are 7 days in a week that they can get this one detail task accomplished. The next week can be the closet. Straighten the clothes, straighten shoes and items stored there and vacuum the floor.

The next week the desk: go through the drawers, have a trash bag ready for this (kids love to stash stuff in their desk drawers) and dust the top again taking everything off, dusting and then putting things back.
v The next week can be the bed zone - have them strip their beds to get their linens washed (personal choice as to how many times a month you do this depending on whether your kids bathe at night and if they have pets that sleep with them) and remake the bed and check under the bed for things that have gotten stashed under there.

The next week can be the floor zone, this is when the floor gets swept or vacuumed really well, under the bed, behind the door, the corners and against the baseboards. This is the detail cleaning that goes on for the monthly zones. All of these things take less than 15 minutes and only have to be done once a week, once a month per zone.

Please remember not to judge your children. When coming across things that have been stashed, please refrain from saying things like "What were you thinking?" and "What is the matter with you?". They may be what you are thinking but please keep in perspective how it would make you feel if someone were helping you and said those very same things. You can teach without judgement. This takes time and effort, remember that you did not FLY overnight, you took BabySteps. Teach your children to bless their rooms so they can go out and bless the world.