Asking your kids to clean up after themselves can leave you feeling like a broken record, so one mum has come up with an interesting solution.
Jessica McGinty, a mum-of-three who blogs at Mishmash Moments, shared a photo on Facebook with five different coloured buckets that had toys in them.
“Today I got the kids fucket buckets™️,” she captioned the photo. “If [my kids] leave toys laying around, it goes in their bucket. If it’s still there at bedtime it goes in the bin because fucket if I’m cleaning it up.”
Kind of the opposite of Mary Poppins’ “spoonful of sugar” approach, right?
McGinty’s hack resonated with parents and had more than 23,000 shares and 20,000 comments on Facebook within a few days of posting.
Many parents tagged their friends in post, while others stated it was something they were going to implement in their households.
“If I started this, they would be full at the end of every day,” one mother wrote. “But I like the idea of doing this. Might try and use it with my two boys and give them rewards if they manage to reduce the amount of toys they leave around!”
Others, while they liked the sentiment, said they wouldn’t be throwing toys out. “Love this, don’t know about chucking toys in the bin though, what a waste of money! I’d think of doing some sort of reward system if they do empty them.”
Do you have any parenting hacks that make your life that little bit easier? We’d love to know about them. Drop us an email to ukparents@huffpost.com.