Teens, Their Bedooms & Their Stuff
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| 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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I honestly don't know how DD's room got to be such a mess! She's hardly ever home and when she is, she doesn't spend much time in her room. All it seems to be used for is changing clothes and sleeping. Mess by teenage osmosis? Who knows?
Now DS' room I can understand. I call it 'The Cave". He hangs out a lot in there and he likes it dark -- blinds are always closed and curtains drawn. He watches his cartoons in there, plays his PS2 and MAKES stuff -- very creative kid. He draws, doodles, plays with Legos and makes suits of armor out of cardboard, drinking straws and duct tape. He'll design and draw characters for a cartoon, comic strip or game he's dreamed up, then try and make costumes for the characters that fit HIM or possibly, the cat. Little pieces of stuff fall everywhere. It's actually kind of cute. Yesterday he came downstairs with a hackey sack he'd made out of an old sock and rice. There were pieces of sock and as much rice on the floor as in the hackey sack, but he's been bopping it around ever since, and it hasn't fallen apart.
I'm trying to think of a clever incentive to keep the rooms tidy. I don't think it's not too much to ask.
Edited 2/16/2006 10:19 pm ET by julesnalpine
my son's room is a disaster area, always has been. i clean it about once a month - we don't have carpet, so i enter the room with a broom, mop, and bleach. whatever is in the way - i don't care.
the funny thing is - that my son is anal about other things - its just the room that is a disaster. but funnily enuf, he vacuumed his room, on his own, the other day! os there is hope i guess.
he doens't leave food stuff in the room - he does eat there but he puts the stuff in the kitchen, i wouldn't allow him to eat there if he was eating junk that brought ants and roaches.
Well, I'm weighing in late here, but, I'm one of those mom's that as long as their door is closed, I don't care. When they were little, I was pretty picky about their rooms...making them clean them every week, etc. Now, I just don't have the energy to harrass them about it. Shoot, somedays my room doesn't look any better than theirs! LOL Besides, by the time I get home, cook supper, clean the kitchen, feed the dog and the cats, I am too pooped to clean house. I will pick up the occasional dirty sock out of the living room, but mostly, during the week, I could care less. So, I feel guilty riding the boys about their rooms when I'm not fanatical about the rest of the house.
But, we do have rules (so to speak). I will not, under any circumstances, wash a particular item that you *have to have* by the next day. I wash clothes when it is convenient for me and if your dirty clothes are not in the hamper, then tough. I showed them how to operate the washer and dryer. The down side of that is they are constantly washing ONE pair of jeans or ONE shirt. Now, I'm after them about, if you are going to wash one-something, *please* throw some other things in there too. :)
Oh and older ds had a nasty habit of carrying a glass of milk into his room, not drinking it all, and just leave it sitting on the window sill. eeeewwwwww. I finally made him start washing BY HAND (I didn't have a dishwasher) all the dirty, nasty dishes he left in his room. That broke him of *that* habit, pretty quickly!
Also, I will not enter your room to put up clothes if I can't walk to the closet. I either hang clothes on their doorknobs, or on their doorsill and folded clothes I lay on the couch for them to put away. And I *do* make them get their folded clothes off my couch!
Oddly enough, my older ds, by the time he was a senior in hs, has become a little bit of a neat-freak! If he had company coming over (be it boy or girl) he would clean the house. !!! Go figure...
I'm just waiting now for my younger ds to get bitten by the cleaning bug. ;)
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