Getting Kids to Clean Room... They Share a Room Help

I grew up in a large family and shared a room most of my childhood. I was "the messy one" my mom eventually solved this by taking trash bag and filling it with everything I didn't clean (which was basically everything I owned). Then, I could earn back each item by doing a chore around the house. It worked! She only had to do it once.

I'd threaten to take everything and throw it out or box it up and take it to goodwill. Tell them that if they don't care about their things, then why should you? My dad threatened to throw all of our toys out one day when my sister and I were doing exactly what your girls are. It worked. We got busy.
Don't make it an idle threat tho, if they are still screwing around, go in there with a trash bag and start grabbing things. Don't even say a word to them, just go in and start grabbing. I know it sounds harsh, but sometimes, you need to be harsh.

Here's some of what I've learned with a 16, 13 and 3 year old that have all shared a bedroom at one time or another. First, you've got let some things go. You've really got to try to let it be their problem and not yours. I have set a rule of no food or drink in their rooms, so at least I know there are no bugs in any of them if it's messy! Second, and this works best, set a rule that before they can have anyone over or go oever to anyone's house that they have to have their room clean. It's amazing how this motivates them to clean. Now it's not a perfect clean, but it is alot cleaner than if we didn't have this rule.

Hope this helps!

How old are the girls? If they are in school they should be able to tidy their room with no problem. If they like to read or watch TV tell them no TV or books until the room is clean. If this doesn't work they might need help organizing their stuff and getting rid of some things. Take 4 things to the room a trash bag, a give away basket, a put somewhere else basket and a clothes hamper for dirty clothes. Tell them to start by picking up all the trash. Set a time for 10 mintutes. Give 10 mintues for each thing. It should work and in 40 minutes your room should be straight. Have them beat the clock. It works great if you start about 40 minutes before their favorite TV program. Hope this helps

Hey J.,
I hear ya!! My nine year old son takes FOREVER to do anything! It's so frustrating! What I've started doing is giving him jobs that he has to complete on his own. When he would "help" us do anything, we always ended up doing all the work.
He has daily chores and most of these are his things anyway. Each day is a certain chore so there is never a question about what is expected. He gets some free time (usually video games) when he's done, but by a certain time. So if he takes too long doing something, he may only get 10 minutes of video game instead of the original 30. This helps with the time, but he also gets quick and careless and we're working on a happy medium. His chores are his room, his own laundry, his scout activity for the week and his bookshelf. He also does dishes once a week (so we all do them once a week), and he does trash with his dad.
If he wants to do anything special, his chore and homework have to be done. This encourages him to do them early in case a frien comes over and wants to play. It's definitely bit him in the butt more than once, but I have noticed he's better in the warmer months when friends are more likely to drop by unannounced. He's also better about keeping his room
Clean through the week (Friday is room cleaning day) so he doesn't have such a big job to do Friday. He figured that out on his own! And his room is generally "presentable" on any given day.
He gets paid every Sunday for jobs that were completed on the assigned day. He gets $1 per chore, not getting paid for Scouts. So $5 a week.

Maybe some of this will help you or someone else!

One of life's lessons is learning to be good at time management. I would set a time limit. IF they don't get it done and/or end up in an argument, then priviledges are taken away. It's not that they CAN'T do it, they just don't. SET BOUNDARIES for them.

When I was a coach, if I had to pick up after them (and I've suggested this to moms to have to constantly -choose to - constantly pick up when the kids don't) they had to PAY to get it back. 50 cents, $1 or whatever....even if that means they have to use their allowance $$ to get it back. They need to learn that there are consequences to poor choices and ineffective time management.

DO NOT, whatever you do.....buy things to replace what you confiscated. After a certain time, if they haven't bought it back, turn it over to a shelter, children's hospital, goodwill or whatever. If they go a month or so and don't get it back.......they obviously don't need it or care about it that much.

Set limits and set boundaries. They CERTAINLY are old enough to learn limits and consequences of poor and/or ineffective choices.

First thing you need to do is define "clean". Seriously... I know many parents who don't do this then are actually surprised when their child declares a room clean that isn't. It might be to the child. Everyone has a different idea of "clean". We have a checklist - no food, no dishes, clothes off floor, small toys off floor (bigger plastic toys like dollhouses and constructed matchbox car racetracks can stay), etc.

I have found that the best way to get kids to clean their room is to simply not say anything and don't make an issue about it. Just tell them they will lose a certain amount of their allowance on Saturday morning (or whenever it's paid) if the checklist isn't done (no food in room, no dishes in room, trash taken out, clothes off the floor). No nagging during the week... just take away 10 cents or whatever for every item not done by Saturday morning. They'll get it soon enough. We stick with a very short 'must have' list. Do I still think their rooms are messy? Yes - but it's not my room, it's theirs.

Also ask yourself - why do you want their room clean? Some kids (people) think better in a messy room. Some are neat freaks. It's the ONLY space in the universe that is >theirs< and that can be as they like it. If it's not to your standards, just shut the door. You don't have to look at it or live in it. If they leave dirty clothes on the floor instead of putting them in the laundry basket then guess what? They will run out of clean clothes (tell them you will only wash what's in the hamper). It won't take too many days of no clean clothes for them to learn. As for messes on the floor... after breaking a couple toys by stepping on them (because they were covered with a shirt), they will learn to take better care of their things. Of course, if they have alot of toys/clothes then this won't work because kids tend to not respect their things if they have too many of them. And if they have 10 pairs of jeans they won't run out as often as if they only had 3-4 so it would take longer to learn the lesson.

Make sure putting away is easy... no lids on bins, no big sorting required, make sure there's plenty of room for everything (no overstuffed closets or dressers or bookshelves!). If it's hard, they won't do. If they feel overwhelmed because there is too much stuff in the room, they won't do it, either.

Remove the clutter. Try to reorganize some things to a different area of the house, closet storage, garage storage, playroom storage. Tell them to pick up one type of clothing or toy at a time. Have them pick up separately. Give them rewards for staying on task and getting it done.

When things are not picked up, go in there, pick it up, throw it in a large box. If it stays in the large box for more than a week or two, tell them you tossed it. It's your choice on whether you toss it or store it in a secret place. You then have the power to bring it out when they are going to be responsible with it. You can also use the large box method for things left by the door, on the couch or on the floor... like shoes, bookbag, coats, clothes, etc. If they leave it out, then you put it in a box. They know where the box is and they can rummage through it to find what they want. If they get upset about all their stuff being piled into a big, dusty, dirty and unorganized box, then they better get up off their tails and put it away. If it stays too long in the box, it might just disappear FOREVER!

Hi, J.,

I don't know what you ended up doing but I hope you are feeling better this morning. I think most of us have felt the same frustration.

What I've done with my children (though they have separate rooms) is cleaned their rooms myself, so everything has a place. Then I took photos of the rooms - each angle, close enough so they could see where everything was - and printed them out. I gave them one of those little mini photo books (like moms carry in their purses) with the photos in them, and told them that when they clean their rooms on Saturday, which is their cleaning day, I expect everything to be where it is in the picture. During the week, I only expect their beds to be made and their clothes in the laundry or hung up in the closet.

This has made a world of difference!

Oh, and one more thing...... make sure the girls have chores everyday, if they don't already. (My children don't receive an allowance for chores. Doing chores is just being a responsible member of the family.) Really, it's very important for children to have chores.

Blessings,
J.

Hi J....I just want to start by saying I totally get your frustration. My oldest 2 girls are 9 & 6 and also share a room. I swear I could have written your post myself with all fo the fighting and such. Like your girls, the older one is the messy one, and the younger one tends to be neater when left to play alone. She also is usally the one who picks things up quicker than the other when they are working together. As of late, we have really cracked down on their bedroom because it was getting to the point that I didn't even want to go in to tuck them in at night for fear of stepping on something and hurting myself. We have just made a habit of going behind them after any given activity...dressing for bed, putting away laundry, playing...etc...and pointing out what needs to be picked up or put away. If its not done right the first time, they do it again (like putting clothes away, or wrong toys in wrong spots). We've been at this for about a month now and they are finally getting to the point where they are tired of us following them around (thank goodness, lol) and they are starting to get better at it. They still have to be reminded that dirty socks don't get thrown into the toy sorter and such, but for the most part, I can bring anyone into their room at any given moment and not worry about what it looks like. It has really been a pain to check up on them after every little thing (I also have a toddler and a newborn to juggle in the mix), but it is starting to pay off for us. There is no more power struggle between them and us because they know its getting done one way or another. Mom won't do it and if dad has to go and do it for them, they lose their stuff (We will trash it if they refuse to take care of it).

Growing up I used to share a room with my middle sister. Looking back I'm not sure how we survived. We were 18 months apart and she was the neat freak and I was the slob. I remember being sent to my room to clean and my idea of cleaning was shoving it under the bed, in the drawers, closet....or on my sister's side of the room.

Most people consider my parents strict and at the time I would have agreed but not now. My dad didn't deal with my BS. We (mainly I) was given a time limit on how long I had to clean my room. If I didn't clean it my dad would. And he meant it-which meant taking everything that was on the floor and throwing it away. I also wasn't allowed to do anything until my room was clean.

When my sister and I were both cleaning our room together my dad would sit on one of the beds and watch us to ensure that we didn't mess around, or fight with each other and that we got the job done.

When I got older and had my own room and I had to clean it within a time frame. If I missed that time or it wasn't as clean as my dad would have liked he'd sit on my bed and watch me clean. BUT this would be at night and I wasn't allowed to go to bed until it was clean.

It might sound harsh, but it got it done. You need to show your kids that you are the boss and you mean it. If they can't abide then start taking stuff away from them, they will get the point.

Another thing you could do is make a list of everything in the room that needs to be clean, and assign the jobs to your girls making sure they know what it is, and can check it off when they are done. If they can't do it in the alloted time, then no TV or no phone for a day. Start small and build up from there.

I have several tricks up my sleeve lately, My ideas keep growing as I keep trying new things as well. I have 3 boys sharing a room, and I do know how frustrating it can be. Fortunately, though, I have an extra room in our basement that I have put the majority of the toys in so their rooms are the easy part, but toy room or not you still dont want it to over run you, as ours often does. My breaking point was one day when I went in to clean it up and sort toys out before Christmas and discovered every single game and puzzle was dumped and scattered throughout the room. So, that is when I wrote out a list of rules for the playroom and also posted the word NO around on certain things that they were now to ask before they could get those items out. Which are on games, puzzles, messier items and toys with lots of pieces. This way, they have to ask me to get it out and I can then know to make them put it away before getting something else out and if the room is total distruction, then I wont let them get those things out. One of the rules on my list is (of course) to clean up as they go, but the problem is when there is more than one child, in my house anyway, is that one will get it out and play then the others start to play with them, and then one will lose interest and start playing something else, and before long the others lose interest, and I cant keep up with what is actually being played with or not. So, I have started just going in during play and telling them to pick up what they are not playing with in which case they almost always tell me they are playing with everything so I say fine then clean up everything and if you still want to play with it when you are done you can get it back out and then I know you are playing with it all. Amazingly, it doesnt all come back out. I have tried a couple of things when they are cleaning up too. Before they start I will tell them they have to clean but they have a choice, they can clean without whining, fighting, etc or they can whine and fight and go to bed early, but either way they have to clean. Then ask them would your rather just clean and get it over with or would you like to go to bed early and still have to clean? During cleaning I often tell them they have until I count to 10. Then I spread it out very slowly, and often repeat numbers so that as long as they are continuously cleaning, they almost always finish before me. But if they keep playing and fighting during clean up I count up. This keeps putting them back on track and then if I make it to 10 before they are done, I grab the trash bag. Usually, one shake of the trash bag to open it up, will light a fire under them, but if not grab a toy, and keep going until the room is clean. I usually just put the toys in time out for a week or two, but how you handle that is up to you. Counting method is good when you do have other things to do as you can just yell out the number from the other room to snap them back on track, but you do need to keep going in to check on them. It amazes me sometimes how quickly they can clean when I count. You can still incorporate assigning tasks when doing this too. I have done that many times then you know who is not doing their part, and if it comes down to actually using the trash bag you can start with things that that child favors.

You didn't indicate how old your daughters are.

I can tell you I shared my room with my 2 sisters, who were slobs. My mother would tell us to clean up our room, and that meant all the dirty clothes in the laundry room, everything up off the floor and put away. She'd tell us not to come downstairs until each of us had our stuff "put together" and she'd be "up to inspect" to make sure we hadn't stuffed our clothes and stuff in the closet or under the bed. It was the "I don't care how you get it done - work it out yourselves, but if it isn't done, there will be consequences."

Depending on their age, you might want to take a similar stance with your girls.

I remember when I babysat, whenever one of the kids whined about there being too much stuff on the floor or something, the mother would sit on the bed, and say, "where's that toy go? where's this thing go? where's your blanket go?" until the room was clean, and it actually didn't take very long.

For what it's worth, and good luck!

Haven't read any other messages, but here's what I've been doing lately and it seems to have more of an impact. Kids hate having to go to bed early and I mean hate it. So, make up guidelines if you don't clean up by X time then bed 15 min early tonight. Then tomorrow, say it again, clean up by X time or 30 min early to bed. Believe me, they hate that and you've got to stick to it. If you don't then don't even say it because they will figure it out quick. Now that we've done this a couple of times we threaten it and "boom" it's done. Goodluck