Teens, Their Bedooms & Their Stuff

iVillage Member
Registered: 12-22-2003
Teens, Their Bedooms & Their Stuff
13
Wed, 02-15-2006 - 6:12pm

When do draw the line on the mess that your kids live in and call their rooms? I am assuming that all teens are as messy as mine LOL! I was a messy kid and teen. It wasn't until I had a place of my own that I realized that putting things away as they were used was a whole lot easier than tackling a months' worth of clutter. But I learned.

I've put on blinders anytime I've entered my kids room the last 6-8 weeks, it's their space right? If they want to live in a pigsty, it's their choice, right? Today I took a good look around and am disgusted by what I saw. It is absolutely gross. Hard to say whose was worse -- they were both REALLY bad.

I went into DD's room to hang up her school skirts from the laundry. I was actually WALKING on an assortment of her stuff. Okay let's play 'Guess What Color the Carpet Is?" I pushed aside some things on her desk and heard the distrinctive 'clinking' sound of cutlery on stoneware. It was a bowl of chocolate ice cream! Not there was anything left in the bowl, but it was definitely ice cream at one time and definitely chocolate. I'm not in the habit of conducting an inventory of my cutlery and dishes, so who knows how long that had been sitting there!

And the STUFF! Shels and I have made mention on this board in a post or two how indulged our kids are and how much stuff they have! Really expensive stuff! They have nicer stuff than me! Stuff that is left laying about, collecting dust. I'm embarrassed that I've spent as much money on things for these two that they don't seem to give a hoot about now! Granted they are appreciative of the stuff when they get it, but they sure don't appreciate it enough to take care of it after the fact.

I DO cut DD some slack -- she is away from home more than she is actually at home. She is a great kid and an excellent student. She has a demanding academic load and spends at least one weekend day on school work or a project. But how hard is it to put shoes in the closet instead of leaving them on the floor? Same for clothes. The rooms are small; it's not that far to walk to the closet -- or to the laundry room. I went to quite a bit of time and expense getting DD's room organized for her high school years because we expected a heavy homework load. She does her homework on the dining room table, because she can't use her desk for all the junk that's piled on it!

I got a trash can and started throwing junk in it. Organized the dozens of pairs of earrings, necklaces, hairbands I found. Put clothes in the laundry. Hung up sweatshirts and hats on the rack. Made her bed and found her missing hairbrush. Dusted and vacuumed. It's nice and clean and tidy now.

I started on DS's room. His mess goes beyond description and will be a multi-day project. I can't believe I allowed them to let things slide like this!

DH said MIL would NEVER have allowed their rooms to look like that growing up. Okay MIL is one of those 'Helicopter Parents', and I am the one feeling the repercussions (sp?) of that particular parenting style! Thought I would do things different with MY kids. Let them feel the effects of their carelessness and/or decision to be untidy. Well, that turned around to bite me in the rear.

I'm thinking that once these rooms get cleaned to my satisfaction, I'm gonna issue an ultimatum: If you can't take care of your rooms and all your stuff, I'm going to take it away so there's nothing left to take care of!

What do you think?




Edited 2/15/2006 6:25 pm ET by julesnalpine

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Avatar for momtb4
iVillage Member
Registered: 03-27-2003
Wed, 02-15-2006 - 8:02pm

I think you should have hung up the skirts, glanced around at all you've provided and then closed the door. I do not clean my big kids rooms. My dd is 11 and my oldest ds is 17. They clean their own rooms, without help at all from me. My DS is actually a neat freak hidden in chaos... When he cleans, it's totally spotless and it doesn't take him very long. DD prefers to try to organize her mess, but she's still young enough that she thinks she has to hang onto every shred of anything. And, her room is to tiny, extremely tiny, and poorly laid out, that it's hard to put anything away because there is no space for it.

"Let them feel the effects of their carelessness and/or decision to be untidy." In what way has this bitten you in the butt? You don't have to live in that room, and as long as your house isn't up for sale, who cares! I do require dishes be returned to the kitchen weekly, and sometimes more often. I refuse to collect them myself, the kid took them in there, he can bring them out, scrub them off and put them in the dishwasher.

If you feel that they aren't taking care of their stuff, take it away. They do take care of the stuff they care about, the rest is excess and they clearly don't know what to do with it. It's clutter. Maybe they should have the option to get rid of stuff, even if that stuff is nicer than what you have. Let them decide what stays and what goes and then they can just take care of whatever stays. jmo

Avatar for elc11
Community Leader
Registered: 06-16-1998
Wed, 02-15-2006 - 10:32pm

We fought the messy room battles for a long time but eventually I decided to drop it. It became a control issue and I had to constantly nag, which starting adversely affecting other areas of our relationship.

I made each kid responsible for their own laundry. If they didn't do it then it was their problem and I did not get sucked into it. (if I had room in my load I might offer to add something of theirs but it was occasional). They will either care about how their clothes look, or they won't, and it is NOT a reflection on you or your fitness as a mother! And if they care they will see to it that their laundry is done.

When they couldn't find things in the room that they needed/wanted they would decide on their own to do some cleaning or organizing. But they seem to know where things are in that mess! Ds was never as bad as dd, there were literally drifts of clothes and stuff in her room. With her we had to make a rule that there had to be a cleared path from the door to the bed and the window so she could get out in case of emergency, and nothing flammable near the electrical outlets. Also no dirty dishes in the room overnight as a prevention against vermin. (I heard of someone that put a dead cockroach in their teen's room and it solved the dirty dishes problem fast!!) We did periodic "safety inspections" but overlooked the rest of the mess.

For me it bacame a "choose your battles" thing. I figured that I could just shut the door on a messy room but I could not figuratively "shut the door" on many other teen issues that were really important, so I let them have the room their way and some of the other things were my way.

For whatever its worth, ds got somewhat neater after sharing a tiny dorm room with another slob. Dd hasn't gotten any better.

iVillage Member
Registered: 11-13-2004
Wed, 02-15-2006 - 11:32pm

Jules, this is one area that I have been lucky..
DD is a clean freak. I don't get it. Her room is spotless.

OTOH, the two older boys were quite opposite.
We had forgotten what color carpeting was in their rooms; we never saw it.
I usually shrugged and shut the door.
But there were a few issues that I had to draw the line on...
Moldy perishable food crap just freaks me out... zero tolerance for dirty dishes, half eaten whatevers lying around, open bags of cookies, etc....
Also, anything that caused permanent damage was not tolerated. Oldest had a bunch of uncapped markers all over the floor. We made him stay home from an activity to clean that up.
They were such slobs, a few times I actually had to tell a SIXTEEN year old that privilages would be taken away for eating in his room. (lol...How's that for micro management parenting..... Did I mention the ants?)
Now he keeps his apartment spotless, and got a different roommate because the previous one was not up to his "clean" standards..
Gotta love it....

<<>>

Tempting...very tempting... you sound just like me... lol
But I would resist my natural inclination to do the above, and instead try to wave a carrot in front of them.
Have a little family pow-wow. Ask the kiddies what kind of reward they would like in return for a little sanity on your part. (Dinner out, movie passes, etc). They need to be invested in the deal. Then spell out exactly what their rooms need to look like for XX number of weeks to get it. Pure unabashed bribery does have it's place...
Personally, I just don't get cluttered slobbery when it takes so little time to just find a spot for something other than the floor.

iVillage Member
Registered: 10-29-2003
Thu, 02-16-2006 - 9:03am

Ok, here's one. I have slobs for children (Have I ever mentioned, ahem, that housekeeping isn't one of my better skills??). I do not make them clean their room.....actually, I am pretty messy in OUR room...my DH is much neater. MY clothes are everywhere. All three bedrooms in our home are small---but anyway, I opened my 12 yr old son's door to wake him up this morning and ugh. It smelled like a dirty gerbil cage. And we don't have a gerbil.

I can deal with mess, clutter, etc, but I hate the smells of stinky boys. My youngest is hopeless as far as keeping things neat and clean. Neatness, I can work with--I don't care about that so much, but the cleanliness thing.........I have issues there. MY DH and oldest son are very clean, and hygiene is quite important to them. My youngest is coming around, but whew.........he hasn't quite gotten to the point of my oldest son and husband. And of course his age and puberty level aren't helping the situation..........

So, they are out of school for 4 days.........and SOMETHING will be done to lose the gerbil odor----and the bedding will be washed and sheets BLEACHED. I don't CARE of it bleaches the pattern. The quilt, however, will have to be sans bleach, but it will still be in HOT.

Gerbils. I can see doggie smells, cat box issues, but GERBILS? It makes me shudder.

We don't allow food/drink in their rooms because of irresponsibility---but nevertheless, we find soda cans, gatorade and water bottles strung out in their rooms........at least it isn't rotting food........

So, although I don't have a clean room rule, I will this weekend---

Shels

iVillage Member
Registered: 12-22-2003
Thu, 02-16-2006 - 11:17am

Thanks for all your input. Guess I was venting in a way. I know I can just shut the door and try to forget about the mess inside, and for a long time I did, but the dried up ice-cream bowl kinda did me in. I almost WISH there would have been ants!

DS had a habit of running from bathroom to bedroom in nothing but a towel and dropping the towel on the floor of his room when he got dressed. Grabbed same towel on the way to shower the next morning. Well, after one of our newly adopted cats mistook the towels for a LITTER BOX and PEED on it (more than once!) he decided hanging them up was a whole lot better than taking another chance on using a cat-pee towel. I guess that's what it takes.

And Shels? Between the two rooms, I found 11 empty water bottles, 3 empty Gatorade bottles, 2 Diet Coke cans, 3 Hansen soda cans, and 2 Sierra Mist cans. ??? (I actually was under the impression I was limiting their soda consumption.) Ha! What is it about water in bottles? We have a fridge that dispenses filtered water AND ice, and instead of getting a glass from the cupboard and getting water from the fridge in the kitchen, in the house, they go out to the fridge in the garage and get a water bottle?

It does make me sad though. I went into DD's room this morning -- she'd actually made her bed! I did notice the jeans she wore to youth group last night hanging over the back of her desk chair ... two feet away from a closet that is fully stocked with hangers.

DH did get after both of them last night and backed me up. I'm rather surprised as he's not a hang-up-my-clothes-put-this-away kinda guy. Guess even HE was grossed out by the mess. Oh well.

I guess if this is the worst of my child raising years, I'll take it.

Thanks again,
Julie

iVillage Member
Registered: 01-20-2005
Thu, 02-16-2006 - 11:35am

I guess I'm lucky - the girls' rooms are upstairs and I refuse to go up there and if I do, I don't open their doors. I really, really don't want to know. I do occassionally vacuum and dust the oldest one's room since she no longer lives at home - it's not her fault dust settles. It would be different if they carried food up there but they rarely do so it's usually dirty laundry, dust, papers, etc.

I've quit doing the youngest Dd's laundry b/c she waits until three or four weeks to bring it downstairs. I refuse to do that much at one time. She is required to clean her bathroom as it is downstairs and off the main hallway. I actually made her drive 30 minutes home one day to wash the toothpaste out of the sink and to clean the mirror and to clean the bathtub. She had just picked up the clothes and make-up stuff but hadn't really cleaned before she left. She had to leave the b/f and come home and do what would have taken 30 minutes if she had done it before she left instead she had the 30 minutes cleaning time and the 1 hr drive time (home and back). That was about 6 months ago and she's starting to slip but she went to the grocery and cooked me dinner Monday so I may have to overlook it a little while longer.

iVillage Member
Registered: 10-21-2005
Thu, 02-16-2006 - 12:04pm

Hey Julie,
Here's my take: There are ususally two camps on this subject: 1. My house. My standards. and 2. It's his/her space. I'm somewhere in betwen leaning heavily toward camp 1.

If kids aren't taught to keep their rooms up to a certain standard, it will very difficult for them to learn to keep a home in order. There's also a great deal to be said for placing value on what they have.

Because of the many many self-esteem issues our dd is working through right now, I've let up a little on the room thing, but this is how we've handled it.

I expect the floor to be picked up (thisi s partially a safety issue for me - I have fairly severe arthritis and a fall for me can cause MAJOR problems) and the flat surfaces to be fairly clear. I announced several years ago that I was incapable of doing laundry that wasn't in the hamper. When she ran out of clothes (doing a stash and dash in the closet where I couldn't "see" it, I had her do the laundry for the week - from carting the baskets to the baseement to folding and putting every thing away. The stopped the stash and dash pretty quickly.

The flat surfaces are a problem area - like your dd she has a lot of "stuff". She had all these odd litle boxes and knick-knacks people have given her. I gave her two boxes and said one is for Goodwill and one is for stuff you can't bear to par with right now but you don't want sitting out. She put most of the stuff in the Goodwill box and only saved a few odd things from her godparents.

When I see she's in a backsliding mode, I will ask her when she comes downstairs "are your clothes put away?" If she keeps up on it, it's uch easier for her.

Oh - one more thing. I will "clean" her room (dust and sweep, clean the mirror, etc), but I told her I won't pick up. I told her that if I go in and there is stuff everywhere, I'll happliy pick it up and charge her $10! I've only made $20 on this one - she hates to part with money.

Now, I don't expect her room to be kept to the standards of the rest of the house ... I just expect reasonable order and safety. And - I let her decorate it any way she wants. Right now, she has lavendar walls that are plastered with photos and magazine articles, movie and theater posters. She has photos on her ceiling and she is allowed to write on her walls (as long as nana and our priest can read them). Most people think I'm nuts - but this is where I really do feel it's her room. She can express herself artistially, but she has to put things away.

She's been drooling over the Pottery Barn catalog lately andI told her I'd repaint but, if I do that, she won't be able to do graffiti on the walls. She says she's ready to give that up and wants to frame just a few posters.

Way too long... sorry. This is more like $2 than 2 cents!

jt

iVillage Member
Registered: 08-09-2000
Thu, 02-16-2006 - 12:41pm

This is a problem. DD is a slob. I grew up in a messy house and had a messy room. H had a stay-at-home mom and made sure the house was clean. His room was clean and his bed was made.

I have way too many issues to make the cleanliness of her room another one. I have asked her to keep it picked up and not allowed food there. For me...this was enough. H has made it his issue. Randomly, he cleans her room. Anything that was left on the floor is put into a garbage bag and put outside somewhere. She has to ask for it and retrieve it. Truthfully...I don't think that's working. Even though she has to trudge through the snow and the cold to get her stuff, her room isn't cleaner. In fact, it's become more of an annoying game for me to referee.

I do know parents who have done something similar, except they throw the stuff away. This seems extreme and unreasonable, but I do have to say...the rooms are clean. (Probably because they don't have any stuff to leave laying around!)

One thing I did put my foot down on was leaving the dresser drawers open. DD has my grandmother's antique dresser, and I made it clear that I would replace the dresser with cardboard boxes if I ever found the drawers open. She has taken me at my word, and keeps them closed.

The other thing that H has done that is working is a charge for wet towels left on the floor. DD is a swimmer, and we have more wet towels than anyone. It wasn't uncommon to find half a dozen soggy towels laying on her floor. H collects a dollar for every wet towel he picks up. Since she doesn't like to part with her money, and he is relentless, there are almost never wet towels laying around.

This seems like a never-ending battle at our house. I hate it, and wish there was a perfect solution.

Julie


iVillage Member
Registered: 08-17-2005
Thu, 02-16-2006 - 4:11pm

Julie,

My kids get a monthly allowance and as part of that allowance they have routine chores to do. DD and DS take turns emptying the dishwasher, for example. 10 yo ds takes out the trash and feeds the dogs. One of their chores is to have their room "presentable". A room like you're describing would not be okay with me. I do, however, allow clothes on the floor to a point. At the end of the week I ask them to put their clothes away. I often do their laundry for them and when I return the clothes nicely folded to them they are expected to put them away. It often takes a week for them to do this, but eventually they do! Sigh. I know what you mean - to some extent you have to allow them their own "space". I draw the line at food on the floor and things that will bring "pesties". Good luck.

iVillage Member
Registered: 02-18-2005
Thu, 02-16-2006 - 6:35pm

I give my DD alot of leeway here - I was a sloppy teen, and am not a great housekeeper now, but I think I"m still OK otherwise ;) I do try to keep the food out of her room - or ask her to put dishes away if I know she's eaten in her room. I refuse to pick her clothes up - if she wants them easier to find, she;ll put them away. Just a week or so ago, she actually cleaned out her closet without a nag (so that she could put clothes away).

But, I also think that it gets overwhelming - so once in a while I'll say to her 'let's clean your room together' That way it doesn't seem such a huge task to her, and it gets done faster when we're together.

I thought she'd pick it up the other night when her friends came over. She pushed stuff around a little, but not too much lol Ah well, if she won't pick up for her girls, she definitely won't pick up for me!

Sue

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