My Kids Are Slobs

I kept the bedroom door closed. It was always a trip, stumble and fall sort of place in my boy's room. About every two weeks I would make them straighten it up if it was really out of control.
I would make mine stay in their room till it was cleaned up, that generally always worked and I think it was good bonding time for them to work together to get things put away. They had shelves and bins and knew where things were supposed to be. They couldnt come out of their room for food or drink till it was done. Worked like a charm every time.

I closed the door to my daughter's room so that I didn't have to look at the mess, and told her that anything that got broken, peed on by the dog, or otherwise damaged/ruined because it was not in its proper place would not be replaced out of my pocket.

My kids are 8 and 6 and they are definitely old enough to clean up their own room (they also share). They might need some guidance and assistance once in a while, but picking up their toys and putting them away is something they can definitely do on their own. My advice is to designate a certain time every day where they can't do anything else until they clean their room. No TV, no video games, no playing outside until they are done. They will whine, they will cry, but then they won't be able to do anything fun, either. If they don't clean before bed, just make the next day the same rule: nothing fun until they clean their room. It may take a few days, but once they realize that you are serious about this punishment, they will hopefully clean quickly and be relieved when they are allowed to play again. If you do this consistently, it will become a habit.

I have also threatened to throw their toys away, and one time I was so angry with them for not listening that I took a large trash bag and started throwing toys in it. They panicked and started crying, so I dumped the trash bag on the floor and they started cleaning. If they stopped, I started putting toys in the bag and they started again. They got the message that if they do not want to clean up their toys, they don't get to have them. It's not easy, though, and I still have to battle with them sometimes, but they do clean their room when they know they can't do anything else until it's done. Good luck!

Here's my recipe:
Shut the door.
Wait 9 - 12 years.
Clean up the rooms after they've left for college. (A lot of the stuff will go with them, so this makes the job a bit easier!)

In the meantime, if something breaks because it was not put away properly, don't replace it -- make your child earn the money to do so. If clothes aren't put into the hamper at the right time, don't do their laundry -- make them do it themselves. (They'll need to learn this skill, anyway.) They may eventually get the message, or they may not, but you'll save yourself a lot of grief. But, do make sure that you make the common areas a no mess zone. If they leave their stuff out in those areas, tell them you will clean it up and not give it back to them -- and mean it! If they care so little for the items, donate them to an organization who will appreciate them -- and make them go along with you when you do so. Obviously, you'll need to be a little judicious about this for things like school books, homework, etc., and it may be difficult to donate really expensive items, but you can hold these items for "ransom", using whatever form of currency you desire to buy they're release.

Here's a laugh for everyone. When my 17 yr old daughter was filling out her roommate compatibility survey for a high school study abroad program she attended last summer, I noticed that she checked off the box stating that she liked her room to be neat and tidy. Looking around at the archeological dig we often refer to as her "floordrobe", I told her I thought she might be being just a tad misleading, which could lead to a bad roommate experience. Her reply was "I don't mind being messy, but I want my roommate to be tidy, so our stuff doesn't get all mixed up together on the floor!" :-D

Okay, my answer is going to be a bit different than the others. When my girls were 2, I began expecting them to help clean up. I was very strict and got a lot of slack for it from my mother. I explained to her that I am raising my daughters to be self sufficient, productive members of society. I tried a bunch of things, but when they were old enough to associate with pictures and words, I began a chart. Each day, after they did their "chores", they could move the picture/phrase over to the "Finished" side and put a cut out letter (one for each day of the week, in two different colors to distinguish between each child) in the "Chore Jar" that we created one day. I let them help me decorate the chart and jar so they would be excited about it. They had to complete ALL their chores satisfactorily to put their letter into the jar at the end of the day. No exceptions.

We would make sure to make a big deal about it each night and give them lots of positive feedback so they knew they were doing a good job. When they didn't do well, we explained to them (at first through their tears, later through a few fits) that we were sorry that they didn't take care of their responsibilities and hoped that they would do better the next day. We didn't "reward" them specifically at that time because, in my humble opinion, you shouldn't be rewarded to do basic tasks. That's not how the real world works, and I didn't want them to get confused with "bribes" or material "rewards". However, we did encourage them with lots of words, hugs and love.

By the time they were 7 or 8, they wanted to earn money and began telling us about other kids at school who had allowances for things like making their bed, putting their dishes in the sink, brushing their teeth and so on. I explained to them that I would not pay them to do things they were supposed to do, and of course they thought this was completely unfair of me. I told them that I would gladly pay them to do some extra chores that were above and beyond my daily expectations. I didn't give them a list, though. I waited until they came to me with their ideas and when they had a reasonable one, I discussed with them what the "job description" would entail, what would be required of them to earn the money, and what the "job" paid. When they received their pay, I taught them to save half of their money and let them go with me every "pay day" to deposit their money into their savings accounts. Again, we made a big deal about watching their money grow and giving them lots of praise for a job well done. We also were very honest with them and told them when they didn't do so well and showed them the proper way. The other half of their money could be spent any way that they wanted, but they were responsible for it. If they lost it, that was their problem, not mine. Pretty soon they were so excited to see their savings grow, they put more than the required 50% into their accounts.

As they got older, their daily responsibilities grew. They are 14 now, and I haven't had to ask my daughters once to clean their room, make their beds, put their dirty clothes away, wash a dish, etc. They just do it automatically. By the time they leave for school, their room is clean and before they go to bed it is clean. The same people who gave me a hard time have been complimenting me since my girls were in 1st grade for how well behaved they are, how responsible they are, etc. This has also influenced them in every other aspect of their lives, too. We have taught them personal accountability since day one. It wasn't always easy, but the headaches were worth it because now we are smooth sailing. I don't have the stress of arguing, nagging or any of the other stuff. It's one of the best things I have done for my sanity, and even better for my girls futures. Obviously, every child is different and what works for me may not work for you. However, I highly recommend using this as an opportunity to teach them some very valuable and necessary life lessons. My Mom didn't do any of this sort of stuff. She argued, bargained, begged, bribed and was always easily pushed over by my two brothers and I. Don't get me wrong, she is an amazing mother, but she never taught us how to live in the real world. I got lucky and the military taught me what she didn't. My 38 year old brother still lives at home (with his wife) and my Mom still takes care of him. He and his wife "mooch" off of my parents and to this day she still makes excuses for him and doesn't see the error of her ways as she continues to enable him and his wife.

Good luck with whatever you do and remember to focus on the big picture! It's our job to arm our children with the tools to be successful, responsible, hard working, honest and productive adults(among all the other things)! Stay strong and don't give in! You'll be glad you stuck to your guns...trust me:)

Just close the door. Their room is theirs.
If they want to live in squalor, let them. Just make sure there is no food allowed in there at all.
I try to keep up with my kids' rooms - they are high school students. Once a year, while they are at camp, I clean them out and purge the stuff I don't believe they need. (If they did it themselves, then I wouldn't have to...)
I don't complain about their rooms - they are busy, straight A students. If their rooms are a disaster, I shut the door and walk away.
Sometimes, if we are having company, I'll tell them that "so and so" is coming and I'd like their rooms picked up and the beds made. They will go up and do it. If it's not to my satisfaction, I do the rest.
Clean rooms are small stuff... I don't have time to sweat the small stuff.
I also find that if I keep up with putting the clean laundry away, they tend to be much much neater.
YMMV
LBC

Have you taught them how to clean their room?

I found out that just telling my son to go clean his room resulted in nothing being done - until it dawned on me that he really did not know what I meant. So, I began teaching him....toys go here, sweep this, wipe that, etc. etc. Once he knew what to do and what was expected it got better.

He is now 14, and while he doesn't keep his room great he does know how to clean and can help with the common areas of our home.

Good Luck, God Bless
Happy Mother's Day

Give them a choice. Say "Either you can clean your room, or I can clean your room. However, if I clean your room, you'll have to pay me and I charge __ dollars an hour. If you don't have enough money, perhaps you can pay me with toys, but I'll get to pick them out. Think about it and let me know what you'd like to do. I'll set the timer for ____ minutes and if your room isn't clean by then, I'll assume you want me to clean it. Thanks"

ummm. . .acting like a 5 year old in front of kids will not help anything. For one you have to stand your ground and if they aren't cleaning up their room, then you take out the trash bags and "throw things away". "throwing away" meaning hide it in the garage till they act better or actually do throw it away. If they don't respect their items they way they should, why should they ever have them back???

The following worked for me: Tell your children very calmly that they have x amount of time to put away everything they want to keep or you'll go in with a big garbage bag and give everything away to children that would appreciate those things. After the allotted time has elapsed (and without saying another word) you go into the room and put into black bags EVERYTHING that has not been packed away. (I didn't REALLY throw everything out, I hid the bags in the attic for a few weeks). Believe me, usually you only have to do that once (so they know that you mean what you say) and next time they'll rush to put away all their favourite toys and clothes! Good luck! Btw - I re-introduced the clothes and toys that had been "given away" by secretly putting them back where they belonged when the kids were at school. When my son exclaimed in amazement that his favourite truck had "magically reappeared" I told him that the only reason he'd found it was because the room was so tidy! The beauty of that age is that they usually still believe in "magic"! :)

One last thing I will add.....we each have our own personalities and I've noticed some kids are prone to being messier.
Some kids are anal and HAVE to keep their things organized.
While the other half of kids are more prone to being lazy, messy, not organized.
I think a lot of it has to do w/personality make-up.
Try to instill and enforce the "clean up your mess" rule but when you come to your wits end....realize that they may be very different and just close the door.
Leave it alone barring anything growing (like mold etc) and wash dirty laundry

Simple when ever they ask you for anything, to go any where ask them what does your room look like? that's what my husband did, and the kids knew they better clean their room then come ask him, our sons shared a room and it got pretty messy, and our daughter kept her room tidy until kindergarten, But this worked with all 3 of our kids. J.

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Hello, You could try this. Tell them that their rooms are their resposibility and that you will not clean it for them, nor will you yell at them about it anymore. Tell them that they won't be able to invite friends over when their room is a mess because there will be no place to play. Then remind them that mice, rats and roaches love messy places to nest in and that they will have to deal with them if that happens. I am pretty sure that the last part will probably get to them.
Good luck with your precious children.
K. K.

That all sounds about right. Only in my house I'm the one throwing a fit. My husband is a worse slob than my daughter and my mother a worse slob than her. I've tried everything too.

My DD just turned 5 & she is pretty good about cleaning up her messes when prompted. Sometimes I help her, but lately, I've been making her do it on her own. I do have to point out & remind her where certain things go, but she's getting the hang of it.

The few times that she does fight me, I just start picking the stuff up & putting it into a basket that will stay in the garage for a set length of time, and usually that gets her started cleaning. I refuse to have a shouting match or argue. If she wants to do so, she gets a time out for talking back & the items get taken away. What I say goes, or there WILL be consequences. No exceptions.

I don't think it has anything to with independence, it has to do with respect for you & the rules. You have to lay out the rules, teach them how to do things properly, and follow through on consequences for not listening. Yelling, repeating, and not following through isn't teaching them anything.

Well you can try charts, stickers, incentives, etc., but my daughter is 17 and her room is a sty most of the time. She must clean it before she has friends over and her bathroom too. Which she does and does well. My son who is 11 can not keep his room tidy at all. Usually I have to go in with a trashbag and start stripping the room of trash, broken toys, etc. The rest of my house is clean, I have always kept clean bathrooms, kitchen etc., so they have had the example. No easy solution.

My kids did, we haven't been on top of that in the last month or so.

What we did was you didn't eat dinner until all your toys were away. Worked like a charm... need to get back into it.

I agree that it sounds like they either have too much stuff or not enough places assigned to put them.

Our puzzles and games where always kept in their original boxes with a ziploc bag inside each box for all of the pieces to go into. Then there was a specific set of shelves just for games and puzzles.

We had a daughter who had a ton of Barbies. We had a 3 drawer Rubbermaid cart for them and their clothing to go into. We also had a "60 drawer nuts and bolts cabinet" that hung on a wall for all of the Barbie shoes and accessories. We could point to any drawer and she could tell you what was in each drawer.

Her stuffed animals went in a hamper. Books on her book shelves.. Cars, trucks on a shelf.

Help your children make labels for these shelves that state what goes on these shelves or areas of the room. It will help guide them. They can make these by hand or on the computer and then tape them up.

Each gift type holiday, the weeks before, we went through her stuff and got rid of items she had not played with in a long time. This made room for her new gifts.

Also clothing she outgrew, that were ratty, or she never wore, were taken out of her room ASAP..

Help your kids to learn that everything has its place. If they cannot or will not clean up, get a giant trash bag and let them know in 30 minutes, whatever has not been put away in its proper place, will be placed in the trash bag and will not be returned.. And then do it.

My DD never learned to keep her room clean. I think she liked the mess. We joked about things scratching att the door, trying to escape :) I gave up & kept her door closed. As long as nothing was growing or crawling around in there, whatever, its her room. Hard to do, but better than battles. I was a huge slob & packrat as a kid. I can not stand mess now & keep my house spotless. To the point, my kids used to say "mom loves to clean the house..." good luck whatever you do.

I feel your pain, but kids won't do it unless you train them from early on that there is no other option and are firm up front an quickly before a million warnings. As they get older (and worse) it's harder, but you can still turn it around, you just have to give ONE calm warning to clean it, and then act immediately withe the major consequence. 6 and 9? The room gets cleaned out of all their cool stuff and they have to earn it back with good behavior for a week or it all goes to the Salvation Army. Or whatever you think is firm enough to deter it in the future after your warning. Your best most effective currency. You have to be consistent until it's a habit for them. And Dawn B is totally right! Get rid of all excess stuff and make sure there is a place for everything so they are ABLE to clean it.

www.flylady.com

about two hours before daddy comes home set a timer for 15 mins and you sit holding the timer and make it a game/race. Then reward everyone who picked up things with a sweet treat.

Kids need their own space. If it totally bugs you, close the door. Don't let them play anywhere else, but don't clean up for them. If they ask for help, you can help them, but make sure they are doing most of it. They may have too many toys to make clean up easy, so you could help them go through them and send some off to the thrift mart, or trash. Then leave them to it. It is their space. You can even send them in with the vacume periodically. Somebody wrote recently 'kids are just adults without the experiance'. respect them as such... Hard to do, I know...
Good luck!
R.

do you help them? kids are good with supervision. be the line boss :) you don't have to lift a finger necessarily...but be there directing the action. get them to find all the legos, and bring them to you (who are holding the box). get them to find all the stuffed animals, and put them wherever they go. make it a race, incorporate teamwork, "easy big sis, save some for little sis, she wants to help too!" encourage them to help each other. ask which one wants to put the books back on the shelf, and which one wants to put the barbies away. get involved and i bet it will go a lot easier. then reverse the situation when it's time to do your chores - you helped them clean their room, they can help you move the laundry, etc etc.

Get to work and sort thru everything, putting all parts and pieces of each toy in a pile. Put them in bins or boxes and take most of them to the garage, or closet where they won't get to them. If the room is so messy then they must have too much and really, most kids have too much and can get by with lots less. So put away a lot and let them have 1 box or 1 item, or like items at a time. Let them have the puzzels for a couple days, then they have to clean them up before they can have anything else. Let them have a dozen hot wheel cars, and track for a few days, then switch to the dump trucks and firetruck. Then go on to the building blocks, or legos. But never let them have more until the last are cleaned up and put away. I'd suggest you have book shelves for books and leave them out for them to sit and look thru. I'd never deprive my kids of books. But they do have to put them away too. But really, the less they have, the less mess they will make. I think I will take my own advice and start sorting (again) and put stuff up high so that cute little grand daughter can't make so much mess at my house when she comes back on Monday. Good Luck! Happy Mother's Day

My 4 year old and nine year old clean the playroom and their bedrooms. I have to break it down into little tasks for my 4 yr old but his older brother I just say it's time to clean.