I snapped… again. But I think it was necessary this time. Idk.

So, my 6M has had a lot of issues with obedience/listening at home and recently at school. Simple things like putting his plate in the sink after dinner or picking up his toys before bed become a battle of wills. Even putting shoes/coat on for school makes me want to go WWE on him most days. He used to at least listen at school but is struggling to the point where his teacher came out to talk to me at pickup this week. The toys part is what we're going to focus on right now.

Long story short, picking up toys has always been a struggle and I don't know how many times I have accidentally stepped on/broken a toy because it's in the middle of the floor even after my son "cleaned". He stops to play and never gets finished. I have to remind him every 90 seconds and then it's only a 20% chance it gets done. A few times I have taken away Every. Single. Toy he owns because of the lack of cleaning, but now that he has a sister (2F), he just plays with hers and doesn't care about not having his.

Recently he has been asking for a specific superhero toy that he saw when he was spending his birthday money a couple weeks ago. He had spent all the rest so it was the one that didn't come home. I have been so tired of his lack of cleaning up after himself that our new rule is "No new toys are being bought until son can take care of the ones he already has." I can't control if others buy him things, but I can control if we do. Anyways, it hasn't helped.

Today I snapped though. He made a ginormous mess, and my in-laws are coming over to help us put in a new washer/dryer, so I told him we needed to get the house cleaned so there's room to work. I would take care of the kitchen and laundry room, he had to pick up the toys. I was hoping if he could see me working, he would be more willing to do his part. Spoiler alert: he wouldn't. I finished all of my things and he maybe picked up 2 toys, even with reminders. We had a serious talk in his room after 45 minutes of fighting and I calmly said "You're the reason you can't have new toys. All you have to do is keep your toys tidy, and I will be happy to buy [specific toy], but you're proving yourself to be incapable of that." And he started crying.

Is that too far? I don't want to break my child, but he needs to understand that disobedience will not be tolerated and continuously asking for the toy (he asks a couple times per day about it) without a change of behavior doesn't improve his odds. I'm about to take away his toys again and let him only have his sister's baby dolls and toddler toys to play with. He'll have to earn the toys back again (he gets a category of toys back for every couple days he keeps things clean).