Ugh! I get so frustrated with my dd! She just will not keep her room clean!

I've purged and organized the stuff in her room. I've put her things in boxes and labeled them. I got rid of her desk because it was nothing but a clutter magnet (the drawers were just crammed with papers). Even though everything is so organized that even a preschooler could keep it clean, I still find stuff rammed under her bed or flung on her closet floor. No, my dd doesn't have ADD, ADHD, or any other acryonym-type childhood issue that would cause her to have a problem keeping her room clean. I think she's just L-A-Z-Y.

What should I do now -- throw away everything except her mattress and her clothes?

Suggestions?

Well, see I just don't worry about those things. My kids rooms are almost always messes. I make them clean them periodically and I tell them they can't have friends up to their rooms if they're a mess, but a thing or two flung on the closet floor or crammed under a bed...that wouldn't even register on my radar.

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Oh, I couldn't stand that. The whole house has to be tidy. And kids need to learn how to take care of their things. Me personally, I would start taking things away, if the room wasn't clean. Like privileges.
My kids are still really younge. 22mos and 4 1/2 and they only have the basics in their room. Bed, dresser, clothes, and a basket of books. I plan to keep it that way. My philosphy is the bedroom is for sleeping and quiet time alone. We have a play room for playing, and it's hard but they know, toy room gets cleaned before the next task TV, games, meals etc.

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"Before I was a Mom I didn't know the feeling of having my heart outside my body." ~Anonymous

How old is your DD?

This isn't really a battle I fight...my kids are pretty good about getting their clothes in their hampers and keeping stuff off the floor but I don't make put everything away, every night. I don't do that in my own room...kwim? So why would I expect them to do it to theirs.

I think sometimes, people have such huge expectations for their small children (not you necessarily but I see it in my sister sometimes). The room becomes a complete wreck and she wants her 5 year old to just pick it up and make it perfect. Well can you imagine how overwhelming that must be? It didn't take a day to get like that and it will take longer than a day to pick it up. Maybe breaking it down into small portions would help.

And yeah, maybe your DD isn't going to care or isn't going to be the tidiest person...and that's okay too! Maybe you can think about what you'd like her to do the most and maybe help her for a while, praise her when she does it on her own and see if things improve. I remember my room growing up and it was either picture perfect or looked like a tornado went off. LOL

If it's REALLY bad you can pack up all the toys! On SuperNanny (i think) they did that once. The kids had a HUGE basement playroom full of toys and didn't take care of them, so they were able to pick out 5 or 10 of their favorites (i don't remember how many). It was funny cause that HUGE room with all the shelves had like 15-30 toys between the 3 kids. Slowly as they proved they could take care of their toys they would win more back!

Another option is what I did for my 4 & 2 year olds! They sleep in the same room and would often stay up playing at night instead of sleeping! We turned our formal living room into a small playroom, but it's VERY open and still has 2 loveseats in there, so not much goes in there. The rest of their toys are kept in their closet so I got a childproof lock to hold the 2 closet doors together. For the most part I don't keep it too tight and my 4 year old can still get it open, but he knows he's not supposed to! Up until just recently my 2 year old couldn't get it open so he was stuck out. Now they generally ask to get in their closet first. This might sound mean, but if they ask 2 seconds before dinner I can say no, otherwise I almost always say yes and they're allowed to play in there. This works because if we have time at night we can clean it up and lock the doors. If we've been out all day we can sweep the mess into the closet, lock the doors and clean up tomorrow!

Hope this helps!

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Stay at home mom to my 3 boys... ages 5, 3 & 1!

I can do all things through CHRIST who strengthens me. Philippians 4:13

She's 8.

See, this is how it comes across to me. If you don't take care of your stuff, that means you don't appreciate it.

I don't expect my dd to be a perfectionist (I know I'm not), but she needs to keep her room relatively neat. I've set everything up so easy for her that there's no excuse for her sloppiness. I'm trying to instill good habits in her while she's young so when she's an adult her house won't end up looking like a "Don't" picture in a magazine. I'm sure it's a slight form of rebellion (ahhh, the tween years ), but this slob things isn't going to fly with me. I know that I wasn't a slob when I was younger; my parents never would have tolerated it.

Set a time for her to clean it. Have the whole family use a few minutes a day or 30 minutes to a hour once a week to work on organizing their own personal space.

Also slowly teach her a few cleaning skills. I'm sure you've been doing this already, such as:

1) Make cleaning fun - or at least less painful. I showed DD how she could turn on a CD and 'rock out' to the music while she's cleaning.

2) I re-enforce to DD, who says she HATES to clean her room, how if she does a little bit everyday or picks up after herself immediately then there is less to do on cleaning day.

3) I showed DD how to do the worst task first, such as making the bed, and how once that is over, life is so much easier.

4) I make DD pay the price for not having a clean room. If there is something she wanted to wear but it isn't clean because she couldn't get it from the floor to the laundry chute, then I'm not going to bend over backwards to get the item clean in time. If something gets broken because she stepped on it, I don't rush to replace it.

5) DO make sure you are very clear about what you mean by 'clean'. Sweeping the mess under the bed isn't 'clean' even if it looks that way. You may find that you have to write down exactly what you mean, then assign the tasks in small chunks to your DD. For instance, #1 - put clean laundry into your drawers and closets; #2 - Put dirty laundry into the hamper; #3 - Make the bed; #4 - throw garbage into the trash can; #5 - empty the trash can outside; #6 - take all plates, drinking glasses, flatware to the kitchen sink ...

Lastly, I set a rule: No guests at the house until her room is clean. So, DD misses out on playdates until she gets her act together. Amazingly, she's pretty good about cleaning her room a few times of having a friend come to the front door to play and having been told 'no' seems to have gotten the point across.

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"I've been rich and I've been poor but independently wealthy is where it is at."

Personally, I gave up on my dd. She is 14 and she is such a great kid!!! If I want her room clean, I clean it. It is my hang up not hers. I figure if all I have to worry about with her is a messy room, I am in pretty good shape!!

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~Happiness is a large family~

As long as there is no food in there ~ ever. And laundry is put in the basket and wet towels are hung up I let it go. They know I vacuum on Mondays and what ever is left on the floor gets vacuumed up (ok I just put it in a bag and put it in the basement somewhere). I was a disaster as a kid. My family still talks about how messy my room was even all the way through college!

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once we purged down the toys and i have them do 10-15 min of pick up while i'm cooking dinner we have not had huge issues. they are pretty good they always put their clothes in the hamper so at least i don't have that problem. so i guess maybe you can work out a set time frame each evening like 10 min ect so that she can tidy as much as she can. then leave it rest and don't hound her. if its really bad spend a weekend day get it all clean(you helping her) and then set forth the new plan. maybe that would work for her.

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