Man, training the little savages really is a lot of work, isn't it? In a weird way, it's made me slightly more sympathetic to unmannered people (and slightly less sympathetic to their parents) to realize how many repetitions it takes instill even basic politeness.
On the house-cleaning side of things, I've mentioned this book in some Ecosophia threads before, so forgive me if this is old news, but there's a book called The House that Cleans Itself by Mindy Starns Clark that might be of some use. It's two core insights are 1) there is likely some reason for the way you do things now, even if you're not happy with it, and 2) make doing the "right thing" easier (even if that means accepting "good enough" instead of "perfect").
An example for kids: if their toys are piling up in the den instead of getting put away in their room, 1) might be something like "they do most of their playing out here with the family, not in their rooms", and 2) might be "get some baskets for toys to keep in the den. Yeah, we have obvious kid storage in the family space, but it's better than toys all over the floor!"
For what it's worth, the same advice is also really useful for almost all things self-improvement/productivity/habit-building related.
Good luck in your ongoing mission of civilization! Jeff
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timeasmymeasure
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Date: 2023-09-20 09:09 pm (UTC)On the house-cleaning side of things, I've mentioned this book in some Ecosophia threads before, so forgive me if this is old news, but there's a book called The House that Cleans Itself by Mindy Starns Clark that might be of some use. It's two core insights are 1) there is likely some reason for the way you do things now, even if you're not happy with it, and 2) make doing the "right thing" easier (even if that means accepting "good enough" instead of "perfect").
An example for kids: if their toys are piling up in the den instead of getting put away in their room, 1) might be something like "they do most of their playing out here with the family, not in their rooms", and 2) might be "get some baskets for toys to keep in the den. Yeah, we have obvious kid storage in the family space, but it's better than toys all over the floor!"
For what it's worth, the same advice is also really useful for almost all things self-improvement/productivity/habit-building related.
Good luck in your ongoing mission of civilization!
Jeff