Are any of you in this boat?
I'm finding neither of us can pick up after ourselves. We have two young children and want to make good role models, we come up with plans, schedules, lists, agreements, and while they start out fine, they fizzle and we're back to chaos. Neither of us is being treated, tho I'm about to be I think.
Does anyone have household chaos like this? We cycle- the house will be fine, gets worse, really bad, then it EXPLODES and we step on stuff and trip around in denial and I pray no one comes to my door. Then we get mad cranky, bicker with each other, and finally spend an entire day or wknd doing what could have taken 15-30 minutes a night to do daily.

Hi Sarah Bear,

My laptop keeps acting up so this is my 3rd attempt at a reply! I'll try to keep it short. We go through the same thing in our house and I can tell you that even when I take my Adderall regularly it is still tough to keep up. So I definitely recommend you explore your treatment options as you said you were probably going to do.

Thought about trying FlyLady , however I only get as far as cleaning the kitchen sink. The thing that has helped me most of all is having a friend (who also probably has ADD) come over and help me sort and clean.

Why is it so difficult for us to adopt a daily routine? I honestly don't know! We live in a small house and it's hard for us to get rid of stuff, too. Yesterday I cleaned off the dining room table, which was a major accomplishment but some of the papers are still on some of the dining room chairs.

My husband was diagnosed with ADD about a year ago after he lost his job and thankfully he has a position that's a good fit now. Our daughter is 7 and was "officially" diagnosed about 6 months ago. I have been on meds on and off for about 10 years now.

good luck to you and I hope someone replies with a system that works for them. I am working hard to help our daughter build better habits of putting things back away immediately after using them and am committed to doing so myself - out of sheer desperation because I just can't live with our chaotic household mess any more!

If I think of some more ideas, I'll add them. I looked in the book section of this forum and found another book that I may check into - I can't place the name now.

Hang in there! If it makes you feel any better, I know of several families who also can't keep up with household stuff.

Jennifer

Thanks Jennifer
, I just don't get it. I understand ADD and the technicalities but honestly, a simple routine. How hard can that be? We KNOW it will make life better and we LOVE the feeling of accomplishment when we do it yet we still let it slide before the week is up.
I think we will have to write in giant magic marker on a giant piece of paper:
Dinner 6pm Dishes 7pm, Clean up Toys7 :30pm , Laundry one load per day by 8:30pm or whatever....but you know, I have tried that idea. We just don't look at the list. Or we find a reason to "not bother" just this once, then it's all over.
I am SO fed up with this, and my poor kids they're only 2 and 4, how will they ever learn when I can't show them?

Thanks Jennifer
, I just don't get it. I understand ADD and the technicalities but honestly, a simple routine. How hard can that be? We KNOW it will make life better and we LOVE the feeling of accomplishment when we do it yet we still let it slide before the week is up.
I think we will have to write in giant magic marker on a giant piece of paper:
Dinner 6pm Dishes 7pm, Clean up Toys7 :30pm , Laundry one load per day by 8:30pm or whatever....but you know, I have tried that idea. We just don't look at the list. Or we find a reason to "not bother" just this once, then it's all over.
I am SO fed up with this, and my poor kids they're only 2 and 4, how will they ever learn when I can't show them?

My husband isn't diagnosed. Maybe he isn't adhd, but he absolutely has strong traits. We defintely struggle with setting an example for the kids. Winter (which is still in full swing here) is the worst. At least when it's warm, we can force ourselves into a quick clean up and then spend the day outside without wrecking the house!

While I don't exactly follow the FlyLady deal, I have been working on establishing a few routines. So far, I have the hour between 7 and 8 am somewhat down. Get up, change/feed baby, 9 year old gets cereal for himself and his sisters, I make coffee, feed the cats, husband walks and feeds dogs, dole out meds and vitamins, throw in a load of laundry, maybe wash a few dishes left over from the night before, and get everyone to brush their teeth.

It's only 1 hour out of the day, but it's beginning to come naturally. 8-9 is reserved for being lazy unless my husband isn't available to take the oldest to the bus stop. Working on 9-10 is my next goal!

I've tried to tackle it in bigger chunks, with broader goals, and it's just never worked. This is taking much longer, but I have high hopes that it WILL work!

Kudos to you for starting a plan! I made my list of what I *hope* to accomplish today and so far I have crossed a few things off.

One thing I forgot to mention, Sarah Bear, is that we live and die by the kitchen timer in our house. Thankfully the stove timer is easy to use and it gets pressed into service for my daughter's 5 minute goal of getting dressed in the morning and for quick 20 min. cleaning sessions I do myself. We have tried it for clean up routines and have had sporadic success.

Yesterday while reviewing some of the Sandra Felton books recommended elsewhere in this forum I came across an organizing web site. If anyone is interested, I will post more details later!

Thanks to both of you, it really does help to know that we're not alone in this! I really believe it is possible to incorporate a nightly clean up routine, after all we HAVE to be somewhat consistent about a bed time for our daughter due to school. So if we have managed to do that, why can't we just thrown in a quick 10 or 15 minute pick up routine right before that?

Hang in there,

Jennifer

Guess what! We made a schedule up, and made it only for in between 5pm and 8pm. We sat down and agreed who should do cooking dishes, toys, and laundry and when, and then I COLOUR CODED pink for my stuff blue for his. And you know, we both keep checking the cupboard door just to read it and it's really helping! It's a visual that's hard to miss and it's a thrill to have the whole family buziing about on theri duties, the kids are involved too, it seems to be working! Two pitfalls await- a drastic change in routine that we have to revamp things for, and two- loss of novelty.
We'll see. It helps to attach chores to times of day that are "set in stone", like hubby gets home at 5pm , so immediately start the toy chore. Or kids in bed by 8pm so sort recycling as soon as we're done coming down the stairs without sitting down first. Not using not "flexible" times of day , "after supper", which is "somewhere between 5 and 7pm" and is meaningless and way too easy to get out of. LOL This might just become a habit and if so, it will be wayyyy better around here.