Show notes

[00:00:00] Michelle: Hello friends. I’m excited to talk to you today about something that every mom probably struggles with. Can you guess this is tripping over smelly shoes that are in your walkway? Here are some easy. Tips on how to avoid those stinky shoes, being everywhere and have your kids pick them up and make life feel so much better and less overwhelming.

[00:00:33] So let’s dive on in, into this episode. If your house is like mine, you find smelly socks and shoes everywhere. It seems then when our kids get home, the first thing they do is take off their socks, take off their shoes and they leave them all over the place.

[00:00:53] So as you walk in the door from taking things out of your car, You find dirty socks [00:01:00] and shoes and you trip over them, or sometimes you find them, as a little small trail left behind, along the pathway to your house. through the living room, through the kitchen, All the way to their room.

[00:01:15] Sometimes you might find some dirty clothes and socks and shoes. So what do you do? It drives me crazy. I’m not sure about you, but I love having my house picked up. I hate tripping over shoes and having them all over the place. I do not like. Mess or large rocks or sticks or pieces of dirt left in the house.

[00:01:43] So I tried to figure out what can I do to fix this problem of my kids, leaving their shoes in the house. If you want to find out, here we go. Let’s dive in. Here are three simple steps [00:02:00] to helping your kids have a productive place to leave their shoes so that nobody trips over them. And you do not feel overwhelmed with stuff everywhere.

[00:02:12] Number one, designate a spot for the shoes. So this may be a basket at your front door. Maybe you have a. place where you sit down at the front door and you kind of your entry spot and you take off your shoes. You can have baskets for each kid. I know one of my friends, recently put in kind of like a little hall closet, an entryway Almost like a mudroom where you could hang up jackets. There’s a little bench. You can take a seat on and you can have little baskets underneath one for each kid that leaves their shoes. There that’s an option. Our house does not have a good spot for an entrance area like that. You just walk straight into a hallway. [00:02:59] [00:03:00] And if you’re walking in through the garage store, you walk straight into the kitchen. So for our house, if I was to figure out a cool mud room area, it would be in the middle of the kitchen. So we decided that the shoe’s spot for us was going to be in the garage. This helped so much with little kids because they always have dirt in their shoes, especially boys or rocks, or their shoes are full of sand.

[00:03:31] Or now they’re just dirty and smelly. Now that they’re in elementary age kids. So are those shoes, I would much rather be in the garage where they can smell up the garage and not. So the kids know when they get out of the car, the first thing they do is take off their shoes and put it in the shoe bin in the garage.

[00:03:53] So in our garage, we have a little extra spot where we’ve gotten an Ikea piece of [00:04:00] furniture that has a drawer that pulls out. There’s two big areas in there for shoes. And those are my shoes and my husband’s shoes. So shoes that are. , dirty shoes, shoes that you know, are use tennis shoes that we’re going to go use.

[00:04:14] Other places those live there. And then right next to it is a cabinet from Ikea, super easy. And there are three spots to put shoes, two shelves, and then three spots for shoes. So each child has a shelf and they stick all their shoes on that shelf. super easy. We do not lose shoes because that’s where they live.

[00:04:38] And the kids know I take off my shoes. I put them in my spot. They throw them in there. Sometimes they will fall out if you open the cabinet doors, but all the shoes are in the right spot. The boy’s shoes are on their shelf and my daughter’s shoes are on the bottom. She has the biggest spot because of course girls [00:05:00] had the most shoes.

[00:05:00] So that is our spot where we have designated the spot to leave the shoes that works really well for us, they can sit down. my original thought was they could sit down on the bench, take off their shoes and put them in the cabinet, but they never have enough patients to sit down on the bench. So they.

[00:05:20] Pull off their shoes really quick, sometimes using their hand or their feet, just to pull them off, and toss them into their spot, their shelf, and then head on inside that way. If the shoes are dirty, if they’re smelly, if anything, they go directly from the car into the Shubin. So that’s number one, designate your spot for shoes, wherever that might be. [00:05:43] If you have a great spot at the front door to do baskets. Or maybe you have a spot in the garage designate a spot where you would like to choose to go to the people are not tripping over them. Number two, remind your [00:06:00] kids to put their shoes in that spot. So once you figured out, okay, this is the spot I would like.

[00:06:06] All the choose to live. You will need to remind your kids because it will not be automatic at first of where their shoes go. So constantly remind them, don’t forget. Take off your shoes after you get out of the car and put them in your spot in the shelf, put them on the shelf where they go or wherever your designated spot is.

[00:06:35] Number three, reinforce this behavior. So reinforcing it positively by thanking your kids. Thank you. That was such a good job of you putting away your shoes. Thank you. Now we’re not going to trip over them. Or like, my kids typically my boys don’t always learn the first time. And so they leave their shoes all over the place still.

[00:06:59] And [00:07:00] the best thing I can do instead of grumbling and picking them up and putting them where they go, because I can do it much faster is to stop, take a deep breath and to ask them to put away their shoes, where they go to stop what they are doing. it might be go pick up their shoes and put them in the appropriate place.

[00:07:20] So after reminding them and having them do that again and again, and again, it’s almost like muscle memory and they will remember, so that reinforces the behavior, praising them. If they do a good job being patient with them when they need reminders and telling them to do it instead of using. And if they decide that’s not what they want to be doing, then you put up some consequences.

[00:07:47] Like if you continue to leave your shoes in the front hallway, then we’re going to have to do 10 less minutes for video game time, your choice. If I have [00:08:00] to put them away, it’s extra time that I would need to be reimbursed for. So I will take that out of your video game time. It’s really helpful to find what currency your kid.

[00:08:12] Use. So, as I said, in this example, my kiddos currency is video games. They only get a select amount of time a week to do video games, and it is the most precious prized possession that they have. So knowing that by the extra. Playing video games taken away or added is a huge incentive. I can use that to encourage their behavior.

[00:08:42] You just have to find what currency works best for your kids. Maybe it’s not video games, maybe. Time on their laptop. Maybe it is time playing with a friend. Maybe it is time playing outside, or maybe it is part of [00:09:00] their allowance that they’ll need to pay you for your time. So something that is their currency, the thing that they value most.

[00:09:08] That’s the thing you want to use to reinstate this behavior, if it’s a problem and they refuse to do it. hopefully that helps. So you will never have to trip over dirty shoes again. And as I said, it is so nice to have them in the garage because right now they stay. I’m not excited for when our boys are going to jump into the teen tween years and start sweating more often, they already sweat quite a bit.

[00:09:41] And when they will start smelling more boy, like they already, their shoes and socks wreak. So having them in the garage is super awesome. our steps for never. Jumping over those piles of shoes are being tripped would be number [00:10:00] one, designate a spot in your house for those shoes. Remind your kids to put their shoes in that spot.

[00:10:07] Number three is reinforced that by. Now, one quick bonus. I wanted to offer, I have heard a tip of some moms, put the kids socks right next to their shoes. So there’s never a problem of, I can’t find my socks. I don’t have socks. When you’re trying to jump into the car, you always have the socks and the shoes that live together.

[00:10:31] For us. I think having their socks in the garage would be detrimental because they would be all dirty. But maybe if you have socks and shoes by the front door, you have a basket and there’s a bag of socks in there and there are. All their shoes. So work out what works best for you, but that is another bonus tip to keep those socks next to the shoes.

[00:10:59] And that might [00:11:00] help troubleshoot some things. If that is a problem. Oh, it’s been so much fun hanging out with you today. I really hope that this has helped you feel less stressed with having shoes and socks everywhere and tripping over them as you enter. As always come on over to our Facebook group, I would love to connect with you there and hang out. [00:11:23] If you need extra help in troubleshooting things like this parenting problems or being purposeful in your parenting or productive in your day. Come grab a coaching session with me. I would love to connect and hang out with you. Now. Go have a very busy, vibrant.