When Do They Start to Care?

Ugh...my son would keep his used Kleenex if I let him. (Not really but seems that way!)

My solution...conquer while he is away. He rarely misses the stuff.

I used to throw everything in a trash bag and if she wanted it that bad, she could go out to the trash and dig it out..

Of course first I would have been asking her to clean her room by Saturday..

I gave her 1 direction at a time.. Please pick up the clothes and put them away or go and wash them..

Then pick up the trash on your floor and throw it away or I will throw it away..

Pick up the books and put them on the shelf or I will donate them..

Then on the Monday after whatever was on the floor, I really did go in there and do the things I promised.. If she and when she threw a fit, I reminded her I had given her plenty of warnings and promises about what was going to happen.. So it was her fault if her stuff was gone.

Many times, I just closed her door, but she knew when I started giving her a time limit, I was not kidding.

my daughter started to care when she got her first house. ( age 25) now she is a clean freak...cannot believe she turned into one. You wouldn't believe her room at age 16. I just closed the door.

She won't become a hoarder, and she's NOT one already (sorry to disagree with some previous responders, but that's just wrong). It's just a facet of /byproduct of ADHD.

Trying to treat this problem like she's a neurotypical child is like yelling at dyslexic to just READ already. Or assuming an autistic child will eat when they're hungry even if you're not offering foods on their 'accepted' list. Same token, strategies that work on neurotypical kids are either not going to work at all OR are going to make things WORSE

You need to look at the problem under an ADHD lens. Not a 'normal-kid' lens.

((Just as an example; that tangled valentine? She probably reacted the EXACT SAME WAY YOU WOULD if the moment you received the card someone yanked it away from you and threw it away. Time works differently for my people, as do memories. When she saw that card she went through the ENTIRE memory of it, just like she'd just received it. Throwing it away is not only like someone taking it and trashing it right after it was received, but it's ALSO a little bit like Alzheimers. Once the card is gone, the MEMORY is gone, as well... unless she goes to a huge effort to save it. ADHD folk aren't true eidetic... we need prompts. It's *terrifying*, the thought of forgetting something like that; that brought you great joy and happiness. And heartbreaking. She's old enough now, she'll have known she's forgotten things, and will already be figuring out coping mechanisms. Right now, all she has are the physical prompts. I have no doubt a meltdown ensued. Double whammy.))

I'll have some suggestions in a bit (Clean homes/spaces are most ADHD'ers personal "106 miles to Chicago" mission from gawd. There are a GAZILLION tips/ tricks/ ways to go about it). Have to run now, but at least wanted to get this out there for you. In the meantime do check out www.additudemag.com

She's already a hoarder...sounds like you need to get her help.

At the age of 10 - if she is already "saving" things and throwing a fit because it's gone - then she's already a hoarder. This is beyond organizational skills...this is hoarding...

She needs to understand WHY she feels the need to keep THINGS...does it give her something? Have her watch the show "Hoarding - buried alive" and let her see the path she is on...

This is not an ADD thing - don't use that as an excuse or a crutch for her...if you cleaned out her room and she panicked because things were gone or being thrown out that she "needed"....it's NOT ADD...it's hoarding...talk with your pediatrician to find out what counselor they can recommend so you can get to the root of the problem NOW and not years from now....

EDIT: My son, Nicky, doesn't like to get rid of stuff. Every day he has to straighten his room every week he has to put his clean clothes away. He is allowed to keep things that mean something to him in a box or on a shelf. But once the shelf or box is full - he can't keep more stuff..so he makes decisions on what to get rid of...it's hard but there are times when it's REALLY easy - "why did I hold on to this?" He'll say and then say "mmm don't need it" and out it goes!!!

GOOD LUCK!!!

My girls started to care in spurts in their teen years. But, the caring periods were very short spurts. My oldest daughter has been on her own now for gosh...almost 10 years. I've seen her apartment hideously messy and I've seen it neatnick clean. For that matter, read the things people write here. I see people coming up with a lot of very flimsy reasons for why their houses are messy. If adults don't care when it gets hard, then why should a child?

It's way too common for girls of her age to want to keep everything. I joke about my family being borderline hoarders. But they aren't. She's way too young for you to go there yet.

My 16 yr old daughter went through a period now and then with her room looking horribly messy. I would just close the door.

She started worrying more about it when her friends would want to come over which is every weekend. To this day, her friends will stay downstairs and chat with me because she will not let them see her messy room. She'll go touch up her bathroom, make the bed and put things away.

Overall, she is MUCH MUCH better than she was around 10-12.

My son is 9 and I am having the same problem. He doesn't want to throw things away. Sometimes he is satisfied with saving a picture of something, donating it to someone who needs it, or recycling. Other times he's not able to let go of things because they have "sentimental value" or he thinks he can use them for something. Crying because I wanted to throw away a broken rubber band- because it could be a bungee cord for an army man! For big items, I try to get him to start thinking about getting rid of them gradually. If he has a screaming fit the first time I mention an item, then I'll tell him to find a home for it(and no the floor does not count) and wait a few weeks and try to bring it up again. Threatening to put everything in a trash bag just backfires with him. Either he completely panics because he can't see what I put in the trash bag, or he says "great idea, I'll just put all of my stuff in a bag in the closet and sort it some other day". I hope that with a lot of prompting he will eventually be able to make good decisions about what to keep.

My daughter is similar. I sneak in and remove boxes of stuff without her even knowing, i also require her to fill a box with unwanted items at least once or twice a year. If she cant keep it clean i threaten to fill that box up myself without her input. My common line is "if you have so much stuff you cant keep it looking nice then we will have to make it to where you have less stuff."

I also print up a "rules for your room " paper and pin it to her wall you can put little checks next to it.

I agree with denise. My 4 yr old will stand overs while I clean her room and if she sees something even if she hasn't touched it in months its suddenly the best thing ever
Boohoo! I wait till she goes to sleep and get busy! She wouldn't even know it was gone! Good luck

They may never start to care.

My SD's room has had problems with her room for years. I don't think the issue is hoarding. I think the issue is not having the discipline to 1. clean and 2. do something with her treasures.

I'd tackle each separately. For cleaning, make a cleaning night. Every other weekend, my household cleans. The kids' rooms must be clear to vacuum. No trash under the bed. Trash where it belongs and out the door. Bedding changed. Make a list. Maybe even do one thing per night. Thursday is trash day. Friday is laundry day. ETc.

For the treasures, consider getting her a file cabinet or teaching her how to scrapbook.

I'm much more a sentimental person than my DH and he has had to learn to file things I might deem treasures vs throwing them away.

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I don't know the answer to your question, but I'll tell you what we do... We go through their room about every week or two and find places for things or else we get rid of them. Sometimes things have more meaning to my kids (like Valentine cards) than I realize, so I don't feel like it's ok to go in and throw away their stuff.

My kids are still pretty young so we break up "work time" with play time and I have them help. Yes it's a pain and it takes longer, but then they know where their stuff is. I help them organize it so they know where to put things back.

As far as your daughter being a hoarder, I don't think anyone here can confirm that she is. My son likes to keep trash and always says he's going to make something else out of it. Sometimes he does and other times he forgets and then to me, it becomes trash. Maybe there a reason she likes to keep it and maybe she just doesn't like to clean up and it's just easier to throw it under the bed. Did you ask her about it?

My daughter doesn't have ADD but she is not a linear thinker and I find myself struggling at time to relate to how she thinks and does things so that I'm not frustrated with her. She can't help it, it's just how she works... but in life, she also has to learn ways of doing things and keeping things organized. In our case, the trickiest part is that things have to have their place. If they don't have a place they've got too much "stuff." This is the same for my husband and me.

Good luck!

My daughter will be 9 soon and has a small room, but she would keep all kinds of crazy stuff if I let her. What we did was this: go through her room now, and then every few months after that, to remove every drawer, every bin, and everything in the closet. If it doesn't fit, donate it (or hand it down to her younger sister). If it's broken or missing parts, throw it out. Any toys/games that haven't been played with in 6+ months, we donate. Then, with my daughter's help, we decide how to organize everything. She has a bookshelf that has several bins on it. We separate her items into the bins and label the bins. We took the doors off of her closet and replaced them with curtains, so she can see her whole closet at once. We hung 5-section sweater hangers in there, and put all her clothes in there. This way she can see all her t-shirts, shorts, pants, etc all at once. Her underwear and socks go in little IKEA bins that sit on the sweater hangers. We also have shoe hangers, and her shoes go in those. So, all of her clothes have a spot to go into in her closet. I should add that it's not a huge closet, so we are very careful when we buy clothes that it's something she really NEEDS and LOVES before we buy it. A kid this age doesn't need 50 shirts. My daughter probably has 10-15 shirts, maybe 5 pairs of jeans, 5 pairs of shorts, and a few dresses.

Aside from that, of course kids this age have things they like, things they made at school, etc. However, I talk with my daughter and we think about how we treat things we cherish. Do we stuff them under our beds? Is that a good way to honor the items and memories we love? I have her keep a small container for items she would like to scrapbook (papers, cards, artwork, etc). For items that may be too large to scrapbook (3D items, such as clay projects), we take a picture of her with the item, and save that in our scrapbook container. Then at the end of the year we make a scrapbook. She has several scrapbooks on her bedside bookshelf that she can look at, and it's a nice way to contain and preserve her memories. Since she knows that some things will go in the scrapbook, she's able to let go of the things that are not so worthy of keeping.

All in all, when my kids start to have a hard time cleaning their rooms, it's because they have too much stuff, and it's time to organize/donate/clean up again. We've been doing this now for several years - maybe since my daughter was 4 or so, and she is getting pretty good at doing it on her own now (though I help keep her on track).