Mother struggles to set limits and make rules for playtime. Or, how I descended into the ninth level of basement hell and clawed my way back out again.
Our basement playroom is kid heaven. The couches are for jumping; the pillows are for throwing. I don’t supervise or say no constantly the way (unfortunately) I do in the upper levels of my lovingly renovated 1920s Craftsman.
We observe a two-hour basement quiet time every afternoon, my chance to catch my breath and play on the internet. (I mean “prep dinner.”) My only basement rule is that the kids must clean up before they come upstairs. It used to work. Maybe I helped them more or they were more eager to please when they were little. About four months ago, it all went wrong. It started with dawdling. I called to them one afternoon to clean so that we could meet friends at the park and 45 minutes later they hadn’t touched a single plastic block. Actual play dwindled. The daily game became dumping out as many toys as possible and then whining, fighting and ignoring me when I asked that we be able to see the floor before moving on to the next activity.
Nothing worked and I am strict. I don’t bend to whining. Their stalling stretched longer and longer while my frustration reached chart-topping levels. I yelled. I ignored them except to say “clean up and we’ll talk.” I threatened. I set timers. I set specific tasks. I rewarded quick clean up with TV (that worked for two days). I suggested before each quiet time that they not dump out every single blessed toy in the basement. Nothing worked.
The problem culminated in the day that they spent SIX hours in the basement. They refused to clean; I refused to let them out of the playroom. We missed our park date. I ate an ice cream bar on the stairs, staring at them. I could not extricate myself from a ridiculous union-like power struggle with my young children.
They look so sweet and innocent, don't they?
I admit I have had better parenting moments, but after copious warnings, they went straight to bed from the basement. When they woke up in the morning complaining about how hungry they were, I sent them back to the basement where they finally, grudgingly picked up all the toys as I shouted down the stairs that their Cheerios were getting soggy.
I lay awake all that night. Clearly, something had to change for my sanity alone. I’m pretty sure an expert somewhere says famine is not an effective parenting technique. Why did they dump out a million toys every day only to cry and whine when they had to pick them up? In my darkest hour, a revelation visited me. The choices overwhelmed them. They could not comprehend from day to day the consequences of mass toy dumpage. Their little brains short-circuited passed play and into mindless mess-making.
Less is more. Play thrives on minimalism.
– Stacey Connor
The next day their father took them on errands and I removed all the toys from the playroom. I sorted, boxed, labeled and placed in neat rows in the storage room. I left nothing but the couches, a train table, and the empty play kitchen. When they arrived home, I was immersed in the larger couch to my waist, fishing for stray matchbox cars. One last box of plastic food lay open on the floor.
My children played “soup” for an hour and then happily put the food back in the box and went outside for snack.
I stood there, covered in dust with my hair in a ridiculous messy bun, watching them in open-mouthed wonder. It’s been four months and the new basement order is a huge success. They must ask for a toy. They must clean it up to get another one. They actually play with things. It’s all so manageable. (Don’t worry, I still manage to yell.)
The moral of this story? Children are dumber than I imagine and we are all so much happier when I remember that fact. No. Of course, it’s simplicity. Less is more. Play thrives on minimalism. All right, maybe a bit of the dumb thing. If I'm being honest.
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