I decided to try a new strategy with the 7-yr-old-who-turns-into-a-monster when the words “clean-up your room” are uttered. I’ve tried “pick up your things”, “start with the…”, etc. All result in a meltdown and me standing hovering over a crying child forcing her to attend to the task at hand while I do most of the work.

I’ve found an approach that eliminates the meltdown, but it is a very slow moving sort of progress (one step forward, two steps back). “Before you move onto the next activity, please go to your room and pick up “Five More Things”.” The problem is twenty things end up on the floor again before I can send her back to pick up “Five More Things”. I guess the next step is to determine what the ceiling is before the meltdown happens… seven things? Ten things? Then we’ll have to start working on expanding the limit. It’s a long arduous process in which the bedroom floor never seems to become unearthed.