Lego airplanes. Full train set. Dozens of trucks. A hideout made out of wooden blocks.
 
Two hours of play. Four major messes. One four-year-old boy.
 
Sound familiar? What to do when your child loves making messes but isn’t as wild about cleaning them up? Here are four ideas.
 
FIND A SOUNDTRACK
 
Kids work well with audio prompts. Just as you might use a favorite CD to put your child to sleep, find a CD, perhaps a rousing one, that signals to your child, “It’s time to clean up.”
 
Another idea: Make up your own clean up song that you sing together as you put away the toys. Our song was a hand-me-down lyric from his pre-school. You can use it, too:
 
It’s time to clean up, clean up, everybody do their share,
Pick up, pick up all the toys everywhere.
 
Repeat the song ad nauseum until all the toys are cleaned up. Doesn’t matter if you can’t carry a tune. None of the day care instructors seemed particularly musical either, but it still works. And your child can sing along … or not.
 
MAKE IT A GAME
 
Over the years, we’ve come up with several games. Of course there’s the counting game. “Let’s count how many pieces of train track there are as we put them in the box.”
 
Another favorite is the bulldozer game, in which your child creates a bulldozer with his arms and pushes all the toys to the correct location. Then you or your child might also be the “crane” who picks up the toys and deposits them in their correct boxes or bins.
 
There’s the race game: “Who can put more legos in the box, Finn or Mommy?”
 
And there’s “The Inspector,” in which Mommy is the inspector who comes to make sure that all the toys are put away and if they’re not, she suggests ways in which they might be cleaned up. “Can you pick up that lego with your elbows?” This one takes a long time, but gets the job done eventually with some good giggles along the way.
 
GIVE THEM A GOAL, AKA BRIBERY
 
One of my favorite phrases: “I have treats for boys who clean their rooms in five minutes.” This phrase works best if you make it specific. First of all, it helps if you have a clock with a minute hand and can show your child what five minutes looks like. It also works best if I name the treat: a juice box or mac and cheese or a watermelon picnic on the porch.
 
If after four minutes the bribe doesn’t seem to appeal and there’s no action, I say to him, “This is so sad” (a phrase I picked up from the Jim and Charles Fay’s book “Love and Logic Magic for Early Childhood,” available at www.loveandlogic.com). “I guess there won’t be any watermelon today.” The tough part is not giving your child the treat when he or she doesn’t follow through. But your steadfastness in sticking to your limit helps to reinforce the consequence and reward. Next time you suggest he clean up his toys to get his treat, chances are he will.
 
TAKE THE TOYS AWAY—AND MAKE THE CHILD PAY
 
This is the phrase that changed my life, also a gift from the Fays: “Only pick up the toys that you want to keep.” If that doesn’t say it all.
 
Here’s how it works. Whatever toys aren’t picked up by your child within a set amount of time are picked up by you, and you put them up high until the next day when the child “pays” you back for their toy by doing a chore for you that they would not normally do. Here is the kind of language I use. “Some children choose to dry the dishes. And some children choose to dust the tables. Which would you like to do to get back your dump truck?”
 
 
BOTTOM LINE
Option four seems to be the most effective if you want the toys cleaned up immediately. Option one and two are the most fun if you have more time. Most of all, I’ve found it helps to have multiple tricks up your sleeve so that you can meet the moment with whichever best suits the mood. Good luck, and let me know what other tricks work for you.