How do you get a 3-year-old to pick up toys?

Question

My daughter will NOT pick up toys. She is in her room crying now, with a pile of blocks next to the basket in which they belong, refusing to put them in. I've promised to read a book and I've promised a popsicle when she finishes. Instead she keeps crying pitifully and coming out of her room...until I shoo her back in with instructions again to pick up the blocks. It is always a major ordeal getting her to pick up anything! I always give her small, specific tasks but she will cry and moan for up to an hour before she finally breaks down and does it. Her poor sister is so good about picking up...they share a room, and my older daughter and I will clean up everything in the time it takes her to put away just the blocks...or dolls... or kitchen toys...etc. What can I do to teach her better picking up skills? If I make it a game and do it with her, will she learn to be dependent on someone always helping instead of her working independently? She's 3 1/2 and I know she's old enough

Answer 1

For kids this age, picking up is a huge daunting task. You have to break it up into smaller tasks and try to make it fun. i.e. "Let's see how fast we can pick up the blue blocks" then continue throught the colors. Even though she's old enough to pick it up, you still need to help her. She's not going to become dependent on you to do it if you help her--now if you just do it every time, then it's a different story. If she doesn't help pick up the toys, place the toys she won't pick up in a "Sunday basket". This is the basket where the toys will be until Sunday upon which they can come back out to be played w/ and picked up. Don't make it a power struggle. Those of our children who are so strong willed and defiant at home are the best kids in preschool and the 1st to help pick up and be the "best" helper. It's a stage. Keep calm, help her do it, and teach her the consequences of her actions if she CHOOSES not to. Make it clear that she is in control of the situation and the outcome and give her options--do you want to help mommy pick up the blocks first or the books. Make it fun. Set a timer. Use the Sunday basket. Just make sure you are CONSISTENT and that Dad and Grandma and Grandpa are CONSISTENT too. That's where the real power struggle was at our house--my husband just would do it b/c it was faster and then Cailyn learned that she didn't have to help her daddy pick up. We nipped that in the bud pretty quickly. She still complains about helping, but she does it. (She's 4 1/2). Have fun w/ this one and good lucK!

Answer 2

Be consistent, don't give in. Keep shooing her back in there until she does pick up her toys. I have a 2 1/2 year old granddaughter and she knows there are specific places for each of her toys. She also knows that when she is finished playing with something, she should put that toy away before getting another one out. If she doesn't, that's fine (temporarily), but it will mean she has more to pick up at the end of the day. She also knows that if she refuses to pick up her toys and Nana ends up picking them up, she will not be allowed to play with whatever Nana has to pick up for one week. Most of the time, I watch over her and guide her by saying "well, you've done a good job and picked up a lot of toys, but there are still some over there" or something along those lines. I try to be encouraging about it. I tell her what a good little helper she is and we sing the "clean up" song while she picks up her toys - that helps too! You can try that. The only way she will learn to be dependent on someone always helping her is if you actually do it FOR her.

Answer 3

Try positive reinforcement. You and 'her sister' start rewarding yourselves, for very small progress, with a small treat such as a gummy bear, for picking up one block and putting it away. You reward sister, and sister rewards you. Make a big deal of the treat and why you got it, ("Oh, thank you Mommy", or "What a good girl you are for putting that doll away"), and then really blather over how good the gummy bear tastes and how fun it was to put the toy away to get such a nice treat. Pretend you are ignoring her, and continue to reward you and sister each time. It would also be a good idea to have a specially decorated box or candy jar to store the gummy bears in. In effect, you are making the experience of earning the gummy bear almost irresistible. Ultimately she will understand that, to get a bear, (reward), she will have to put a toy away. If she does put something away, reward her also, and make the same fuss over her effort. Do this each time at first, and then gradually decrease the reward, such as 1 reward for each 3 toys put away. Then 1 to 5 ratio, until it is down to 1 reward for the entire 'job' = all the toys are put away. You and sister will continue in this process the entire time so that she sees everyone is now getting 1 treat for 5 toys, etc., and finally one treat for all the toys. This decreasing reward system eliminates the development of expecting a reward for every effort, but ultimately does develop an understanding that rewards have to be earned. Don't start this when she is already on the 'rampage'. Wait until all is calm and she is in a positive mood.

Answer 4

I've worked with many times of different ages of children. I've done case studies on children of ages 3 and 4. By the age of 3 they should be able to pick up there own toys. There fine motor skills are coming along however not 100%. Fine motor skills are thing like putting beads on a string, picking up small objects such as puzzles putting them together or holding a crayon correctly. Your little one has that and gross motor skills. Gross motor skills are picks up at ball, throwing the ball, walking on a balance beam ect. At the age of 3.5 the child should have a very good gasps of both motor skills. How you know is watch him while he plays and see if he can do the follow listed above. Your not being hard on him at all. I have seen at children at most of those ages do put up a mess about picking up. Try a clean up song to make it seem more fun. Best of luck!

Answer 5

I give rewards like a popsicle or a dime for the piggy bank.I have a now 4 year old that was the same way i still have some trouble getting him motivated and if the reward doesn't work i say if you don't want to pick up the toys and i have to i will throw them away and put them in a bag for about a week then slowly add them back.Now he picks them up because he doesn't want to loose them.

Answer 6

What you should do is give the other daughter rewards (snacks or something) and attention, while leaving your 3 year old alone. Hopefully the 3 year old will pick it up and start picking up toys. This is called observational learning.

Hope it works out for you.

Answer 7

Always an issue with kids. One thing I did with my daughters was to try to make it fun and give them a sense of ownership for the procedure. I made it a color game. "Pick up all the blue things" then "Pick up all the pink things", etc. You would have to teach this method but later she could follow it on her own choosing her own color order. My oldest daughter, now age 23, says when she still REALLY isn't in the mood for tidying her apartment she still plays this same game to get it done! LOL!

Answer 8

I'm sure you're doing this-at least that's what it sounds like-but make sure that:
1-You stick to your guns. She doesn't do anything else until she picks up those blocks. She doesn't come out of her room, she doesn't do anything. You wil need to sit there and make sure that she doesn't do anything else. Bring in a book and sit. Make sure that if she's crying you don't acknowledge her. She will try to come and sit with you or throw tantrums whatever. You ignore her. If she picks something up (other than the blocks of course), you take it away. Remind her every once in awhile without looking at her that she needs to pick up her blocks. While this is going on, you said you ahve another daughter. Show your youngest that your older daughter picked up her toys and then gets to play. Jealousy is an incentive as well. The whole time, this is going to be grating on your nerves and hers, but a few times of doing this and the problem should be lessened, if not solved.
2-Make sure that even if you have to spend an hour waiting for her to pick up those blocks that you praise her when she does it. Here's what this will teach her:
-That you mean business and she's going to be bored out of her mind. And you tell her that this could have been avoided and she could have been doing much neater things if she just would have picked up her blocks.
You should also tell her how happy it makes you when she obeys you and picks up her blocks. Tell her that it hurts you when she doesn't listen to you. As I'm sure you know, children are very sympathetic to feelings, especially that of their parents.

Here's somethign that I think could work for you and of course you can make changes as you see fit:
Make a poster on the wall for each of your daughters. Then make rows with your children's chores (i.e. picking up toys, helping mommy, playing nice, getting ready for bed quickly...whatever you want them to learn). Then make stars or fruit or whatever and put velcro on each of the spaces and the stars. Divide the rows into 7 or 10 or whatever (7 for things that happen once a day like getting to bed and maybe 10 for picking up toys or something that happens more often). This will create some variance. Then every time that each of the girls does something positive, you let them put a star on the poster. (I would say either let them have a stool to put it on themselves, or you can lift them up, but I would leave it out of their reach so that no tampering can happen.) When they fill up their row, they get to pick a piece of paper out of a bag, hat, etc. You write on the papers things such as, "Pick the next restauraunt we eat at", "Pick a special toy" "Pick a movie" "Day with Mommy/Daddy".
Make sure as you're explaining this whole process to your girls you explain teh prizes and make a HUGE deal out of it!
This can be fun for you and them.
Now, when they don't behave...you take off a star in whatever area they are not listening in (not picking up toys, take a star from "picked up toys"). Let's say that you have to sit there and do waht was stated in #1-for every 5 or 10 minutes that she doesn't put the blocks away, you take a star. Eventually she'll realize. Make sure you warn her that she's going to lose a star.
*sigh* Wow-this was really long! But I hope that it helps! This game will teach A LOT of skills and lessons that will help them in the future. To know that good behavior is rewarded, is really important. Good luck, and if you decide to do what I've suggested, let me know!

Answer 9

Break it down into even smaller jobs and make a game out of it. Ex: How fast can you put away the red blocks? Now can you put away the blue blocks faster? Be sure to "reward" her for a job well done.

Answer 10

This may sound wrong, but I always threaten to throw the toys away if they are on the floor after I've asked to have them picked up. That works in my household. Kids either pick up their toys after they finish playing, or they end up with no toys to play with.