For those who have utter slobs for children....

[MrsMe]

DD is 12 and after putting her freshly washed socks away today, because she was gone, I found that she didn't put away her clothes from the other day. They were draped over junk on the floor of her closet. At least an entire load.

 

All she has to do is put socks, underwear in a buck on an open shelf, set pants or shorts on a shelf above it in the pile and they were on the floor. I've done everything possible to make putting anything away as simple as possible for years, and years and she just can't do it.

 

She has a heck of an imagination, because I was never one to destroy her creations for the sake of a clean house or room, even though that's not my nature. During school she has to make her bed and has to pick up her floor and picking up the floor does not include "creations". She has earrings everywhere. Yes, she has a jewelry box. Her dirty laundry is everywhere in her bedroom and frankly her bedroom stinks. Between the lack of deoderant on certain days I guess? and clothes being "lost" in area of her room, it stinks.

 

She's a kid that if I give her drawers, they are pulled and used for some creation. The plastic containers are now gone, they don't work. I gave her my Pampered Chef turnabout for her colored pencils and markers. Those are strewn on the floor and it is now housing "some" marbles. She used to use the pencils and markers to make roads for her matchbox cars. Gum wrappers, barretts, whatever all over the floor. She'll pull the spare blankets from her closet shelves and use them for lining her closet for whatever reason. Books are piled on a shelf, thrown on a closet floor or stuck in a sack or bucket somewhere. Nothing is corralled. It's under the bed, in the closet, piles upon piles. And all this.....she cleaned her room about 4 days ago. DH installed reading lights above her bed, but first she had to make a path so we could get to it.

 

I don't want to dictate where she should put things. She's 12. I also don't want this to come between us. Big issue! Also, if she's not going to use some things I give her for their intended purpose then I want them back.

 

At what point and to what extent do you dictate how their room should be and what should be used for what? Personally, I'd like my $20 Pampered Chef turnabout back. Infantile I know, but sheesh! Right now, when she gets home she will find out that "her" laundry day is Friday. I'm not sure if I should just wash it and she should just do the rest from the dryer on.

 

So please, only mothers of slobs reply.

[Parrothead]

I get in there and clean it for her. Last time was right before Christmas. I took out 3 contractor size bags of garbage- old clothes, junk, broken or otherwise useless junk.

[Unicorn.]

Yep, you just described my kids. It' used to be just 2 of them but now all three are like this. I'm really, really sick of washing folded clothes that didn't get worn, but are dirty from being on the floor, and stepped on. NOTHING has worked to get them organized. On the bright side, ds has a girlfriend and has recently started putting things away, keeping his room clean, and picking up around the house so said girlfriend can come over. I hope she's around forever! :D

[Ottakee]

I ended up cleaning my 16dd (special needs so more like a 12) just before Christmas. She is TERRIBLE, HORRIBLE and VERY BAD at keeping her stuff picked up. She has ADHD and is creative and .............................

 

No real answers but I could have written your post.

[Melissa in Australia]

What you do is get a rake, you go in her room and rake everything that is lying around into a big pile, You then tell your daughter she has 1 hour (or however long you think she could possibly get it put away) to have it all put away or it is going into a garbage bag and all getting thrown out. MY mother did this once to me. It worked I never had a messy room again. I have known other mothers who have had to do it several times.

[Remudamom]

I have two neatniks and two slobs at home. The boys are pigs, and I stand in the hallway between their rooms til they get the job done. I can't stand a mess like that. I'd lose it.

 

I'd tell her we were going to clean and then supervise the job. In my house if you don't take care of your stuff there are consequences. Could be as easy as mom coming to get you to do something you left undone, could be mom chunks it.

[Joker]

I only ask that there is a path so we can walk. She also must completely clean it when she invites friends over for a sleepover or just to hang out (which is why it stays somewhat clean). It's nothing we even argue about anymore. She just know if she wants to have someone over that she must clean it, so she does.

 

She has also been doing her own laundry for a while now, so that's one thing I just don't concern myself with at all anymore. If she runs out of clothes, its on her and she will have to find the least dirty things for school (or whatever) that day.

[jewellsmommy]

I get in there and clean it for her. Last time was right before Christmas. I took out 3 contractor size bags of garbage- old clothes, junk, broken or otherwise useless junk.

 

 

SIGH, unfortunately I have to do this for my dd as well. She is similar to the op's dd in that she is very creative, naturally disorganized, and resists all of my attempts to make it easier for her to keep her room clean and organized. Nothing seems to work. When I clean for her there is crying and pleading. I wish there was some other way.

[MrsMe]

LOL...so many replies so fast! Why is this? I don't remember anyone like this when I grew up. My DH is like this, but of course that he's older, he works at it. He has piles and can't manage paperwork. I do it for him, but it's frustrating. But he doesn't have stinky laundry and doesn't leave it laying around.

 

I would LOVE to clean it weekly. It's one of those rooms that would look good when you're done, you know?

 

I love the rake idea. And oh yeah on the CLEAN clothes....I smell and look then wash.

 

Maybe I should trade her for other things she likes to do. Like she can clean my bathroom and I'll clean her room!

[MrsMe]

 

 

SIGH, unfortunately I have to do this for my dd as well. She is similar to the op's dd in that she is very creative, naturally disorganized, and resists all of my attempts to make it easier for her to keep her room clean and organized. Nothing seems to work. When I clean for her there is crying and pleading. I wish there was some other way.

 

Yes! If I ask her to clean it, she's beside herself! I've done the Flylady kids cleaning program, I've done the sorting technique with the 3 baskets in the middle of the room with her, we've done buckets, sorters, bins, drawers and now throw-it-in-open-bin shelving!

 

Ah....I'm not alone. But it stinks, pun intended.

[Cassy]

I check up on it all on a daily basis, and nag. All my nagging doesn't seem to improve their tidiness or cleanliness, it just keeps things roughly acceptable. I hate nagging, but I don't know what else to do. Sometimes when I can't bear it anymore DH will do the nagging for me, usually in a much louder, much more irritable tone of voice :sneaky2: .

[SpecialClassical]

Yep, you just discribed my kids. It' used to be just 2 of them but now all three are like this. Im really, really sick of washing folded clothes that didn't get worn, but are dirty from being on the floor, and stepped on. NOTHING has worked to get them organized. On the bright side, ds has a girlfriend and has recently started putting things away, keeping his room clean, and picking up around the house so said girlfriend can come over. I hope she's around forever! :D

 

 

I have charged my children a quarter for each folded item that comes back through the wash. I am about to re-institute this policy and apply it to all but the 4yr old!

[swellmomma]

I have 3 that are ordinary messy kids, they do need explicit instructions if I tell them to put laundry away or clean their rooms but they generally prefer some semblance of neatness. I have 1 that is going for pigpen of the year award. That boy is a walking tornado, you know exactly where he has been because he leaves a huge mess, he constantly has food on his face, his clothes are filthy, he just tosses things on the ground (I am after him daily for things like bread crusts and fruit peels because he just throws them on the ground rather than putting them in the garbage. He is getting a new room next month, partly for my ds14's sanity, ds9 is just too messy/chaotic and ds14 needs a safe neat place to calm down. And partly because he will be in the room attached to mine so I can keep after him to keep his room cleaner. If his messes were contained to only his room my rule (like with the others) is no dirty dishes to be left in there, only laundry brought out will be washed by me, once a month if it is not kept clean I get to clean it which means I decide what stays and what goes. He however destroys every room of the house faster than a hyper 2 year old so that is not an option with him.

[MrsMe]

Yeah...human tornado. I know exactly where she's been. I was thinking of instituting zones for doing certain things, but not sure if that would work. Perhaps a bedroom only for sleeping, writing and reading. The rest has to be done somewhere else, but then I suppose it's another mess somewhere else. She loves to write and read and has oodles of paper, but that's the least of my worries. It's everything mixed with everything else!

 

She also will take anything from anywhere to make things with. So my sewing stuff was in her room, some of my velco dots, MY cd, all to "create". The problem is that she's an "only".

 

We do have a "no food" rule which does work, except for candy and gum wrappers...right now I'm picking those up. I used to charge for laundry too. $1.00 for pants and underwear stuck together with one leg inside out. But then she ran out of money. Sheesh.

[Jayne J]

Ds 9 is doing all his own laundry these days, since I kept getting baskets full of clean, folded clothes topped with filthy stinky clothes (as if I wouldn't notice the folded stuff under that clever, clever camouflage. Sigh). Currently I supervise while he sorts and then he washes, dries, folds and takes up the laundry. Since he is doing it, I don't care if it gets put away.

 

As far as the room, I can't help you. I live with the messiest kids ever when it comes to rooms. I just close the door until I can't stand it and then force them to clean up when it gets ankle deep. I really have a hard time balancing my need for order with their needs for personal space. I will be listening in for others ideas. I can say I would impose penalties for misuse of *my* things--like the sewing supplies. I would punish every time my items were not returned neatly to where they belonged--that is crossing the line between personal space and other people's belongings.

[Guest inoubliable]

*Gently* Do you think maybe the issue might be too much "stuff"? It sounds like you've bent over backwards with trying to get things organized and it's still ending up all over the place. The first thing I'd do is get the trash out of there. Then, maybe look at how many clothes your DD has. If she's got so many that entire loads of clean laundry are completely overlooked enough to be tossed on the floor, make it to the wash only to make it back to the floor again... well. Maybe it's too much. Just something to think about.

[Joshin]

Cleaning and neatness is a habit, so you have to reinforce the behavior until it becomes habit. If you want it to be habit, she has to do it, you can't do it for her. I have one neat child and one slob. To be honest, my neat 12 year old was a slob, but now neatness is a habit. DS7 is still a slob, but slowly neatness is becoming a habit. Other than the the fact I can't abide a mess, I demand clean rooms for safety. If there is a fire in the middle of the night, they need to be able to move around their room without injuring themselves. Hygiene also plays a major role. My little sister was a slob and her messy room attracted ants every summer and mice on one occasion. (It was dirty clothes that did it, because food wasn't allowed in our rooms!)

 

My children are also very imaginative, especially DS7. They have one reserved area for creations. They must clean up rooms daily before dinner, except for the creation area. The problem with creations is they build them, play for a few days, then move on to the next idea. The old one is ignored and slowly dissolves into a pile of junk. If my boys want to build a new one, they must put the items from the old one away. The daily cleanup isn't onerous and doesn't have to be perfect. We do a cursory check to make sure floors are clear and that shelves, bins and closet are reasonably organized. Once weekly they must do a thorough cleaning, including vacuuming and dusting, followed by a more complete inspection.

 

We don't inspect DS12 often anymore because he is now fairly neat. DS7 gets daily inspection and is assigned a time limit for cleaning, complete with timer, or he'll linger and whine over it all day. I find this method, which takes about 15 minutes six days a week and about 30 min. one day a week, much more pleasant than the huge fits and arguments that occur if we allow his mess to range out of control.

[Mommyof4ks]

My kids know they have to clean it up or I clean it up which means they lose most everything in their room. My dd is very near. My boys, especially one of them, not so much.

[DragonFaerie]

DD's room is a terrible mess most of the time. When she was homeschooled, her room had to be picked up every day. Now that she's in public school, that's not really feasible, but she still must clean it up every weekend. I'm not overly picky (shelves with things piled up haphazardly and often overflowing; and I don't even think of looking in the closet or opening dresser or desk drawers!), but I do expect it to look clean. No toys, trash, junk, stuff on the floor. Desk and dresser cleaned off and neat. Bathroom cleaned up, towels hung up, clothes put away, shoes lined up, etc. Floor vacuumed, bed made. I figure so long as it gets done every week, I can tolerate the in-between times.

[Whereneverever]

*Gently* Do you think maybe the issue might be too much "stuff"? It sounds like you've bent over backwards with trying to get things organized and it's still ending up all over the place. The first thing I'd do is get the trash out of there. Then, maybe look at how many clothes your DD has. If she's got so many that entire loads of clean laundry are completely overlooked enough to be tossed on the floor, make it to the wash only to make it back to the floor again... well. Maybe it's too much. Just something to think about.

 

This.

[AK_Mom4]

Dd18, before she left for college, had devolved to a two-basket system.... One for clean clothes, one for dirty. Nothing ever got put away. Ever. But since the clean clothes were out in plain sight, she was happy. She needs to see things all the time. Only her shoes would escape periodically and I finally got her a hanging shoe rack for her closet so she could always see them.

 

Now she shares a tiny room at college and has about half the clothes that she used to since there is no room for anything. She keeps it all tucked away in two drawers but not necessarily folded or organized by type.

 

Dd11 is always filling her room with creations too. I make her clean up once a week, which is fine since she doesn't seem to have inherited her sister's "clothes on the floor" problem.

[nd293]

Mother of a slob here. I do not accept that dd's room is 'her space' to the extent that she lives like a slob in there. Nope. If she wants that, she'll have to turn 18 and get a job and get her own place. She understands that we'll be fighting the tidy up battle until the day she walks out my house, and that alone helps get things done. She knows I'm not going to back down.

 

Consequences that benefit me are better than battles. She used to leave hair elastics all over the house - every time I returned one to her room I got a 10 minute foot massage. It started as a bit of a silly 'punishment' but worked really well - I didn't get so grumpy over finding her stuff everywhere, and it didn't take long for the message to get through to her.

 

She knows her room must be tidy enough for me to go in and clean the floor at any time. If it isn't, I sweep everything into a pile (dirt and stuff) and she has to sort it immediately and finish the floor cleaning.

 

If I do find things in such chaos that I feel the need to pack her stuff away, I assume she's 'hired' me for the job, and 'charge' her another job that I don't have the time or inclination to do (cleaning the bath, watering the garden etc).

 

Since becoming more clear about my expectations and more systematic about consequences things have definitely improved, both in terms of tidiness and in terms of less tension over any mess.

[MrsMe]

sorry duplicate

[MrsMe]

But as an update, I thought she'd be angry when she got home today and I was cleaning her room. And she didn't care! I told her I would clean her room if she cleans my bathroom and her bathroom weekly, and she has to do her own clothes. I'll wash, she does the rest. She said, "OK!" I've been in there since I wrote the first thread, have 3 bags of garbage, another started and will complete it tomorrow. And she didn't care what I tossed. Go figure.

[MrsMe]

I hate to say this but no. She creates stuff, with paper, and from my craft closet (which she can't go into anymore), empty boxes, making signs, fabric that she buys and cuts up. Not that many clothes either. I've gotten rid of oodles years ago. However, it's still too much, even the little she has. Mostly in the paper dept. So I've removed all but one tablet and one sketch pad. I used to pack things away and have her trade me when she did have a lot. But since just dumped all that.

[MrsMe]

What you do is get a rake, you go in her room and rake everything that is lying around into a big pile, You then tell your daughter she has 1 hour (or however long you think she could possibly get it put away) to have it all put away or it is going into a garbage bag and all getting thrown out. MY mother did this once to me. It worked I never had a messy room again. I have known other mothers who have had to do it several times.

 

Oh...and I needed a rake for under her bed.

 

LOL! But she still fits well enough to get it.

[Reya]

By 12, my room was my room. It was often messy, but the messiness was never all that bad, and I vacuumed it at least once every other week.

 

Not so sure about my DS. I think he will still NEED to be told, "20 min, and I want it spotless!!!"

[thescrappyhomeschooler]

alilac- I could say many of the same things about my 2 sons' room. I just "helped" my kids clean their room a couple of nights ago. I ended up with 1.5 big garbage bags of junk- trash, broken toys, etc.

 

I have had so many "systems" of organization in there, from very detailed, labeled bins, to big, giant totes that they could just dump everything in. Ds2 has tons of stuffed animals, and I tried various containment systems for those, but they inevitably get re-purposed by him and the animals are strewn all over the floor. They had no socks in their sock bin for some reason that they couldn't explain, the reason for which I discovered when doing laundry over the weekend- dozens of clean pairs of folded socks down the chute. Must have been swooped up with dirty clothes from the closet floor.

 

A few times, dh and I have been so upset about the state of their room, that we've taken EVERYTHING out of there. In fact, about half of their possessions are currently in the basement storage room. They have to earn things back, but once they do, they seem to forget why they lost the stuff in the first place. I've given up. Now, whenever I want to vacuum and dust in there, they have to get it to a point that I can do that. Other than that, I make them do a 10 minute tidy before story time each night, but it doesn't help much. They have reasons that all their "creations" must remain all over the floor, their desks, the dresser, etc.

[Reya]

For those who have kids who get overwhlemed, get them to clean BEFORE it becomes too much. A daily 10-min pickup, even.

 

I would not be folding laundry or vacuuming or dusting the room of any child who is 7 or older. Not. Happening. The room needs to be vacuumed and dusted weekly, and THEY are doing it.

[MrsMe]

For those who have kids who get overwhlemed, get them to clean BEFORE it becomes too much. A daily 10-min pickup, even.

 

I would not be folding laundry or vacuuming or dusting the room of any child who is 7 or older. Not. Happening. The room needs to be vacuumed and dusted weekly, and THEY are doing it.

 

 

We've done this daily. In the am before school or in the evening at 8pm before bed. But it didn't work either. She could clean her room one day, and before the next day you'd never know she touched it. She does great on the bathroom. I think because even though the hall bathroom gets messy, it's not overwhelming due to the size.

[Lynnae]

Mother of two slobs here. I think the youngest is going to be one of those born organized people, thank goodness.

 

Anyway, last year I read the book Cleaning House. The author's method was to deposit a dollar for every day of the month in a jar at the beginning of the month. The kids couldn't spend the money until the month was over, but the money was in a prominent place in their rooms.

 

Every morning she'd do a room check. If the room was reasonably neat and the bed was made, nothing happened. If the room wasn't clean or the bed wasn't made, she took a dollar. No words. The money just disappeared. At the end of the month, the kids got to keep the money that was left.

 

I started to do that last year, and it worked as long as I was consistent about checking rooms. But I went out of town and fell out of the habit, and the system fell apart. So did the kids' rooms.

 

So now we're doing it again. Only this time I added that I would take a quarter anytime I had to pick up their stuff from the main living areas of the house. I'm not totally strict, but I can't stand dirty socks and food wrappers just left in random areas.

 

I'll let you know in a few weeks how it's working out.

[thescrappyhomeschooler]

Oh, my kids have been instructed in how to vacuum and dust their room, but unless I'm standing over them the entire time, it doesn't get done properly. So, I vacuum and dust myself once a month or so, just for my own conscience.

[besroma]

*Gently* Do you think maybe the issue might be too much "stuff"? It sounds like you've bent over backwards with trying to get things organized and it's still ending up all over the place. The first thing I'd do is get the trash out of there. Then, maybe look at how many clothes your DD has. If she's got so many that entire loads of clean laundry are completely overlooked enough to be tossed on the floor, make it to the wash only to make it back to the floor again... well. Maybe it's too much. Just something to think about.

 

 

We had to do this. Our children would get so many things out while playing or dressing, that the thought of cleaning it all up completely overwhelmed them. Keep whittling down the number of things (toys, artwork, clothing) until you find the number she can handle. Then, you can start adding items back when she is ready.

 

We read to the kids every night before bed (all ages). They look forward to it all day. If their room is not clean, they must clean while we are reading to them. Also, they are not allowed to play outside or start new art projects or similar (baking, building) unless their rooms are clean.

[happypamama]

I feel your pain. My daughter is the same way, exactly -- everything is a "creation." (Right now, she's building something out of cardboard.) I really have to make her clean it, and by make her, I mean I have to tell her exactly what to work on (tidy your desk, get all the books off of the floor, etc.), and I have to follow up on her a lot. She'll start working and get distracted by something. I do try to limit what's up there, but things just kind of creep in over time.

 

If she doesn't put her laundry in the basket and put the basket outside her door (DS2's morning job is to collect dirty laundry from around the house and bring it down for me), she doesn't have clean clothes. That does at least get her to keep up on that particular item.

 

Otoh, she's fun and creative and makes cool and interesting stuff, so I try to remember that when I'm frustrated by her room.

[AngieW in Texas]

My 19yo is still like this. She has to keep all her clean clothes out where she can see them. She also can't put her dirty clothes in the hamper in her room. She has to dump them on the floor next to her hamper and right on top of her clean clothes.

 

When she takes her laundry upstairs. She walks two steps into her room and then drops the stacks onto the floor. You have to step all over a mix of clean and dirty clothes and books and everything else to get across her room. I do my best to just not go in there.

 

She has her own apartment at school and actually has a washer and dryer in her room. She does the same thing there, but she doesn't even bother folding what comes out of the dryer, so she just picks stuff up off the floor to wear. It might be dirty. It might be clean. Who knows? She doesn't care.

[Susan in KY]

But as an update, I thought she'd be angry when she got home today and I was cleaning her room. And she didn't care! I told her I would clean her room if she cleans my bathroom and her bathroom weekly, and she has to do her own clothes. I'll wash, she does the rest. She said, "OK!" I've been in there since I wrote the first thread, have 3 bags of garbage, another started and will complete it tomorrow. And she didn't care what I tossed. Go figure.

Maybe she's just overwhelmed by her own stuff and finds cleaning the bathrooms far easier. I feel like that sometimes, as if I could trade decluttering tasks with a friend, we'd both be able to do a better job tossing out the other's junk because it *looks* like junk to us, not some creation that we were rather attached to at the time we created it.