Trying to be positive (updated)

On Tonya's recommendation, I have slowly worked my way through 2.5 books in the positive discipline series by Jane Nelsen (Positive Discipline, the first years, the preschool years, and A to Z). I think they have some excellent suggestions, both for me to change myself, and my interactions with Ant (and others too!).

The basic tenet is to be "kind and firm" while parenting. Rather than punishment for "misbehaviour", coming up with logical consequences for actions, and following through with those consequences. An easy example is one I think many of us have used - if your toddler doesn't want to put a coat on, you say fine, and let them experience what outside feels like without that warmth.

I'm trying very hard to follow this model, and really do find that it's working for the most part. Today, however, Ant and I have been majorly at odds. He has decided that it's fun to dump out the recycle bin, which also at the moment contains a bunch of shredded papers. "It's snowing!" he cried in delight as he threw the papers up in the air. I gave a sigh, as I could see where it was headed, but decided that I might as well join in the fun. So we had a grand old time pretending it was snowing, throwing the shredded paper pieces this way and that, piling them on top of each other and pushing them around.

The trouble started when we were finished. I am so tired of cleaning up after everyone in this house, and I have decided that everyone else needs to play their part as well. Yeah. Ant does not like this new plan. I told him it was fine to dump out the snow and play in it, but that when we were finished, we had to tidy it up before we went on to play with anything else. I tried more pretending, "Let's shovel the snow into the bucket". He thought that was a great idea, grabbed a spatula, and shoveled one shovelful into the recycle bin. Then it was more fun to just push the 'snow' around. He also dumped the plastic drawers that have bibs, burp cloths and wash cloths in them. Put that on top of the recycle bin as a "snow separator". "Great", I said, "let's put the snow through the separator!" That also lasted about half a minute, with the majority of the 'snow' remaining on the floor.

I started the dishwasher, which Ant loves to do, but he wouldn't pick up the snow, so I couldn't let him help me. I pulled out the vacuum cleaner, and he was dying to help me with it - but still refused to tidy up. I tried a number of times taking him over to the piles and starting to pick it up myself, to no avail. I started the vacuum cleaner without him which led to wails and cries (and made me teary too!), but still didn't encourage snow removal.

He's currently napping; I put all the stuff into a big pile, and I'm really hoping that when he wakes up we can put it away. At which point the bin will go away so that dumping it again is not an option.

I feel like I can't let this lack of tidying go for too much longer or it's going to become a lifetime habit that I really can't live with. So I'm sticking to my guns. I just hope that I don't shoot myself in the arse with them!

Update: No dice with Ant cleaning up the nice pile of snow. Eventually I got so sick of looking at the stupid stuff I decided I needed a new approach. So I told him that we could trade - I would clean up the snow if he would do another job that needed to be done. He could put the books back on the shelf upstairs or straighten up downstairs. He chose the latter, we went down and he did a nice job of picking things up down there, so I cleaned up the snow. Hoping that wasn't a bad thing to do... I just couldn't take it anymore!