Thread: Sick and tired of messes around the house!

You need to sit down and have a private talk with your husband without any distractions. Tell him how exhausted you are and that you need help with things around the house. Tell him that you need both him and your daughter to take responsibillity for themselves and the house they live in by cleaning up and taking care of things. There is no reason the two of them cannot pick up after themselves other then sheer lazyness. It's most important to have him onboard and then the two of you approach your daughter together. Lay down some rules and guidelines about how you want things done and set some consequences/punishments for when she does not do what she is supposed to. Make sure to follow through with the consequences too or the plan will not work. It will take some time to get them in the habit of doing things right, but you have to stick with it and be serious with them. Let them know that you mean business. You don't need to yell either. Just look them in the eye, be straight forward and blunt, and tell them like it is.

It may also help for you to find ways to better organize your house and make it easier for them to remember what they are supposed to do. For example, if they both throw clothes on the floor, put a clothes hamper in the area where they throw the clothes (say in the bathroom or something) and let remind them to use it. Use sticky post-it notes to remind them to do or not to do things. Change them up and make it funny. If you can make them laugh while getting the point across, they are more likely to be happy to do it and to remember it. Or, you can pick up things they left on the floor and put them some place inconvenient for them which will annoy them and eventually make them realize, "if I leave my stuff on the floor, mom will do something to it". That is an old one which works... I know from childhood experience. Hahaha!

Hope that helps.