i got this off another site thought u all might like it
Starfire has a blog post about "How To Get Childern to Put Away Their Toys" which you can read here.
I told my children that we had a "nice" house monster who lived inside the A/C vents. My kids knew four things about our House Monster:
(1) Other monsters, including the scary or "bad" ones, wouldn't come into a house which already had a monster.
(2) House Monster only ate those white sparkly rocks you see in gardens or people's front yards.
(3) If you left any toys on the floor unattended, House Monster would take them and play with them for a few days before returning them.
(4) If you really wanted a particular toy back, you could put out a white sparkly rock and call up to the vent for House Monster to trade for it. When you weren't looking your toy would reappear and the rock would be gone!
This worked amazingly well for many years with each of my children. And I recycled the same three "food" rocks over and over again without them ever noticing!
Parents, please feel free to use this idea with your own children!
