Cohousing-L Mailing List: Re: Cleaning up and other kid issues

[David L. Mandel (75407.2361]

This is a request from the parents caucus at Southside Park Cohousing, following
a couple meetings held lately to discuss issues that feel a little more urgent
with the onset of summer vacation. We're interested in hearing how other
communities have successfully (or unsuccessfully) dealt with the following:

        1. Supervision of the children in the common house play room,
particularly with regard to cleanup. Just as we adults sometimes have trouble
taking the initiative to fix something in the common area when it's no one's
clear responsibility to do so, so it is with our under-10 crowd in the
children's room. Major messes frequently appear and none of them admit that they
did it or want to clean it up. The attitude we're trying to instill is that all
have to help clean up no matter who made the mess, but in truth we know that
some really are more responsible than others. It's just that we have a couple of
expert mess-makers named "Nobody" and "I Don't Know" who never seem to get
caught. 
        Until now, kids have been allowed to use the room as long as an adult
they know they can go to is somewhere in the common house. S/he need not be in
the children's room. One helpful development on the mess front occurred a few
months ago when the kids themselves held a meeting and decided to remove 80
percent of the stuff from the room, leaving only those things used most often.
But it's still a problem.
        One proposal now has been to keep the room locked and allow kids in only
when an adult is physically with them. A little less extreme is that an adult
must open the door and even if s/he doesn't stay is responsible for making sure
the kids inside clean up. Or a third idea: require everyone who enters to sign
in and out at the door; that would at least let us know who was there.
        Any comments or other great ideas out there?

        2. Similarly, regarding the teens (10 and up): They have their own room
upstairs (which they recently painted with a graffiti motif). They've also had
trouble keeping the room clean, though lately it seems to be better (there's a
rotating schedule, I think, and some of the earlier wildness of our first year
here seems to have dissipated). 
        The main debate here concerns supervision. Some adults think the teens
should not be allowed in the common house unless an adult is also in the
building. There have been incidents of rambunctious and even somewhat
destructive behavior, plus some poorly timed raids on the refrigerator involving
ingredients for the next night's dinner. Others think it's OK at certain times,
such as evenings, with an explicit curfew, perhaps. Should they be allowed on
occasion to sleep over in the common house?
        Also, at times when no one else is in the building teens have instead
ensconced themselves in the main sitting room. Sometimes this has been
accompanied by high-volume stereo. Some adults think the teens' socializing
should be restricted to their room. Others would like to include them more in
adult society, as long as some rules are followed.
        Since we're in an urban neighborhood, security is also an issue. We keep
the common house locked at night and usually during weekdays. So letting the
teens in also means trusting them with a key and trusting that they'll remember
to lock up when leaving.

        3. A related issue: We have selectively enforced a rule that
non-cohousing neighborhood kids are not allowed in the common house. For some of
us, this seems too strict, since we'd like to encourage interaction with our
neighbors, including the teens. But there are serious issues of liability and
trust and fear: we live in a tough neighborhood with some badly messed-up kids.
        
        4. The toy gun debate surfaced again at tonight's discussion. No one
likes them, for lots of reasons. But do we stifle certain play instincts that
seem to surface no matter what we say or do? And what about squirt guns that
don't really look like guns and are lots of fun in our hot summer climate? Some
of us wanted to distinguish those from regular toy guns. Others were even more
dead set against them because of the risk of damage to eyes from some of the
high powered, supersoaker types that are most coveted.

        What do you think, folks? Thanks for your input.

David Mandel, Sacramento