HOW TO DEAL WITH PROBLEMS RELATED TO
THE CONDITION OF THE CHILD’S OWN ROOM:
THE CONDITION OF THE CHILD’S OWN ROOM:
PROBLEMEleven year old Marcus’ room was getting messier and messier. There were clothes, toys, books, homework, soda cans and pizza plates everywhere. Mrs. Ellis could hardly get in there to find dirty clothes for the wash. Marcus lost his science book and the parents bought him another one, at $50, and then found the first one under a pile of clothes. He habitually lost his homework. The Ellises worried that there would be roaches and ants, soon. They got angry at Marcus weekly when he failed to clean up his mess. He shrugged and picked up a few items. They took away his allowance and he straightened the room. But on laundry day, mother found he had shoveled everything into his closet. Mr. Ellis was particularly upset because he had built the house and felt hurt that his son did not respect it. He and mother chronically preached to Marcus, “We gave you a room. You owe it to us to keep your room clean. You ought to be grateful and respect what you have.”
DISCUSSION
Criticizing, withdrawing privileges, docking allowances, bribing, punishing and other power-plays sometimes work in the short run in getting a messy room cleaned up. But in the long run most children return to having a messy room as soon as the crisis has passed. This is particularly true if they want to “get back at” a bossy or disrespectful parent.
If parents actually GIVE their child his or her room, as they say they are doing, then they need to treat that room as though it BELONGS
to
the child. Imagine how we would feel if a landlord poked his head
into our apartment every day and complained about how we kept our
belongings. With young children, a very effective way to minimize messiness is to reduce the number of toys “out” during the week (see above). Parents can teach tidiness by working with young children, every so often, in fun-focused room cleaning. At first, the parent will do the majority of work while the child helps, but as the child becomes older, the child will assume the major clean-up responsibility.
At 9 or 10 years of age, the child should assume full responsibility for his or her room and its property. As in renting an apartment, commonsense rules apply—children are not allowed to damage the walls, furniture or carpets, nor attract insects or vermin by leaving food or drinks out. Parents should be clear about these commonsense rules about respecting property—noting that landlords DO kick tenants out of their apartments when they damage the property. Children who cannot pick up food or drink items should agree to not take food into their rooms.
These commonsense rules should avoid any REAL sanitation or damage problems—enabling the parent to stay out of the child’s room issues. If the child requests help in cleaning up his or her room, this can be done as a one-time “room cleaning event” where both the parent and child work on the room together. The parent should never clean the child’s room by her- or himself.
Before continuing, we suggest that the reader go into his or her room, study or office and observe how clean or messy it is. Are you modeling orderly behavior?
SOLUTION
Our solution is quite simple and works exceedingly well. When you give a child his or her own room, make sure that you remember that it is a gift and the room belongs to the child. Keep out of any power struggle. If you don’t like the way it looks, discuss this with the child and insist that s/he close the door. If the door doesn’t stay closed, put a door spring on it and walk away.
Learn to be innovative. To avoid having to go into a messy room that might upset you, agree with the child that you will wash only those clothes that the child puts into a hamper outside the room—in time for the wash day. Better yet, teach your child how to do his own laundry. If your child can operate a computer, s/he is old enough to run a washing machine and dryer. Doing her own laundry teaches life skills and develops appreciation in the child for what you DO do for her.
Once the child feels s/he OWNS her own room, s/he will be more likely to keep it at a level of neatness that s/he needs in order to function well. We recommend that you help the child feel ownership for the room and respond to his reasonable wishes, say, for a desk, posters or a new lamp. This process of organizing his space may take a while and the room may become significantly messier for a short period. Once the child experiences the natural consequences of losing books, homework, toys, and clothes, s/he will learn to keep the room more orderly.
Make sure you do not save the child in these learning situations. If the child needs to wear dirty clothes to school on one or two occasions because she has forgotten to get them into the wash, then this will motivate her to remember the next time. If s/he needs to pay for a lost textbook, this will encourage her to keep things in better order. If friends come over and comment on the messy room or cannot find a place to sleep during a sleep over—these natural consequences will encourage the child to become more organized.
There are far more important issues in your child’s life to get upset about than his or her messy room. The child will probably become more organized as s/he matures into adulthood.
Common areas of the house, however, ARE subject to the agreed upon rules of neatness. These areas belong to ALL family members and need to comply with the levels of neatness desired by the parents. Adults should make sure to keep up with their obligations in minimizing clutter in common areas—to model neatness for their children.
