How do you motivate your kids to keep their rooms tidy?
Mine has a habit of changing clothes and leaving them hanging on stuff…like her piano stool, foot board of the bed or the back of her door where she is NOT supposed to put anything but her bathrobe and night-suit. (it’s gotten so bad that I’ve now threatened to remove the hooks altogether)
I have a very low tolerance for clutter and mess so this bothers me and I don’t want to be a nag. I’m the type of person that puts clothes away the minute I change…whether they need to be hung up or in the hamper…they go where they belong. Even after an evening out when we get home at 2 or 3 am, I hang up my formal wear because 1. I want to take care of it and 2. I dread the thought of waking up to a mess in my room the next day.
What should I do?
How do I ingrain the proper habits into her?
She has what she needs, a proper closet, hangers, hamper, etc, etc.
I have to constantly tell my daughter to do the same and end up cleaning after her too as she doesn't do too good of a job at times. The key to stuff is keeping as less of it as possible in the room. My daughter had lots of toys so the room gets messy with that besides the clothes but my son has a minimal room so that helps.
I dont know how old your kids are but rewards work (give one star on their reward chart for each day the room stays clean, after 10 stars they get toy or money). Or you could make it a game each night (whoever cleans their room faster gets to choose the bedtime story that night).
I have absolutely no useful advice to give but maybe you can just make sure the room is tidied before dinner?
Like my sister makes my older niece clean while she's making dinner and her job to tidy her room entirely before dinner. That way I guess its not a lingering task I guess that may/may not get done?
one of my neighbors told me she did the following with her son last year after she heard me venting/complaining about my toddlers constant mess i have to clean up/put away ..
her son is 9 yo now.
she said after all the verbal instructions/reminders/admonitions failed … one day she told him … anything she finds on the floor is going into the garbage AND since he cant keep things organized/neat, all his privileges (TV, ipad etc) are being revoked and his room is being stripped bare. she gave him a 24 hr deadline to clean up. he didnt clean up … didnt even make an effort … SO, next morning after he left for school … everything on the floor went into a garbage bag and was put out on the curb for pick up AND she stripped his room bare (like down to the walls) leaving only the bed behind … and thats what the kid walked into once he returned from school.
she tells me … she has never had a problem since.
so i did try her approach (modified) … in that after my toddler is done playing with whatever she is using … and hasnt put away her stuff without being asked … i will walk over to the littered stuff … pick up one item at random and tell her … this is garbage now right? and start walking to the garbage can… that gets her going immediately and she puts it all away. she is at a point now where “queem up” has become a habit and i haven’t had to threaten her .
not sure though if this will work with all age groups.
^ Alteratively, we all can come to the realization that a child is a child and we should not strip them away from that joyful, carefree time where it does not matter if the bathroom sleepers are placed on the mat on the right side of the door, or quilt is spread such that the tag is on the left foot side.
Admit it or not, our childhood was not as involved compared to what our kids are experiencing. I used to be back from school at 1 pm, and would take a three hours nap after lunch. My daughters go to school at 7:30 and come back at 4:30 and then they have Quran lessons. After that, expecting them to have a spic and span clean room is unreasonable. And my kids don't have any special schedule. Almost every kid of working parents has to run such routine.
Let your kids enjoy their childhood people. Don't torture them through toilet trainings at ten month of age, or drinking from cup at 6 month, or kumon classes at age 2. Your kids are going to have just one childhood, and their memories should be of running behind butterflies, and not of scrubbing bathroom floors.
^ Alteratively, we all can come to the realization that a child is a child and we should not strip them away from that joyful, carefree time where it does not matter if the bathroom sleepers are placed on the mat on the right side of the door, or quilt is spread such that the tag is on the left foot side.
Admit it or not, our childhood was not as involved compared to what our kids are experiencing. I used to be back from school at 1 pm, and would take a three hours nap after lunch. My daughters go to school at 7:30 and come back at 4:30 and then they have Quran lessons. After that, expecting them to have a spic and span clean room is unreasonable. And my kids don't have any special schedule. Almost every kid of working parents has to run such routine.
Let your kids enjoy their childhood people. Don't torture them through toilet trainings at ten month of age, or drinking from cup at 6 month, or kumon classes at age 2. Your kids are going to have just one childhood, and their memories should be of running behind butterflies, and not of scrubbing bathroom floors.
aww haha
cant say i know any parents who make their kids scrub any floors...
I dont disagree with your perspective but i do think there needs to be a balance. Nothing wrong is establishing good habits without being an OCD tiger mom/dad or flower power hippie!
in the story i related ... that mom had already tried and failed to get the child to listen ... what she described/did was her last resort. should she have approached it differently? how? any specific practical solutions for parents in similar situations (namely if a child just isnt listening/responding to repeated reminders)?
would it be better if she let him accumulate mess on the floor till the room is un-walkable or should she just continue to clean up after him? till what age? ....
let me flip this around ... not too long ago on this forum was a hot debate re: children acting like children (ie running around being noisy at social events/mosques) and who was responsible ... and MOST people agreed or had the perspective that parents of children who ran a muck publicly were 100% responsible ... that children are teachable and should be taught manners from an early age ..... that if a child was misbhaving publicly and outside a parents control then that parent was remiss in their duties and had better not attend the social gathering/mosque whathave you .... SO can the parents of these children say ... hey ... my kid is busy all day long and this is the only time/opportunity they've gotten to run and laugh and play ... cut them some slack! ... plz dont say ... the two scenarios are differnt .. one being public vs private/in home behavior ... one drives the other i think and both involve a child ignoring parental guidance.
rest i agree with ... kids these days are certainly overburden and over scheduled without much play time ... BUT it still doesn't exempt them from some basics ... like a bath or putting away toys/books (thats not the same as scrubbing the bathroom floor ... LOL) etc...
I agree that kids misbehavior in public reflects bad on parents, as its their responsibility. If kids room is messy, then yes it's to parents to teach the kids to be organized. But I believe that we can cut them some slack when it comes to domestic responsibilities.
And Muzna tou waise bhi har jagah apna Martial law run kerti hai. Her daughter, as we know the family personally, is gem of a girl. Very proper and full of manners. Muzna ke apne standards bohut high hain. :D
The easiest way to keep the room tidy is to put two or more more treasure chests in their room and let them dump , yes dump, anything or everything in those treasure chests. Do not expect them to keep those treasure chests to be organized though.
If this does not work let me know I will go back to drawing board to come up with some other ideas.
Kids beds with hidden drawers to dump stuff also works equally well.
It is all coming from my own experiences, I and my wife raised three kids.
Oh Gosh, I am like your daughter, Muzna. My mom wishes she could remove the shelves in my closet cuz I will toss my clothes there. I've gotten better though to where I'll make more of an effort to hang my clothes cuz it can be a pain to go rummaging through a mess. My mom is like you, very neat and organized; I do not take after her..it's like I have an innate penchant for clutter.
We don't push them much on weekdays but have a cleanup day on weekend when everyone is responsible for their stuff cleanup. As TLK said, they get really little free time on weekdays to enjoy their stuff.
One thing that has helped with the clothing is that we have put hampers in their rooms (before everyone's hamper was in laundry room). That took care of them throwing cloths all around.
TLK…I wasn’t sad about you being right…I was sad that I am the way you described. :sad:
Mirch…bhai…we did have a “treasure” chest in her room…before it was for toys…then it became for out of season/party shoes…then it became a bottomless pit that we feared would one day explode. Ultimately this approach works great for little ones that need some place to dump toys and items that they don’t regularly need. If I continued to offer this as a solution I’m sure that items for daily/regular use would end up in there and when they are needed she wouldn’t take the time to dig them out.
She does have a hamper in the room. That works well. But there are articles of clothing that don’t need to be washed each time they are worn…like denim and hoodies for example. These are the things that I find hanging on the back of the door and draped across the piano stool. This is what irritates me. It takes only a fraction of a minute longer to hang them up on hangers…why not just do it?
RV…she takes after her father. Any surface that is large enough to accommodate an item of clothing will be blessed by it. Period.
That is why I said couple of treasure chests and yes you can supervise and train her to dump one kind of toys/stuff and the other one for the ones she plays with/uses regularly.
Same thing with clothing. You need to supervise and train her till she gets it right.
Everybody needs training and retraining and refreshers for the things you expect them to learn. Organization is one of them.
Thanks Mirch....I remember reading that story before.
I do need to supervise and work with her. Perhaps she's just not ready to do it on her own yet or needs some more time to understand that she's the boss on this responsibility.
...It takes only a fraction of a minute longer to hang them up on hangers....why not just do it?
Its very rare that you can find logic of "why" with the kids (them being kids). My daughter sometimes will take her hooodies all the way downstairs to coat hanger but will just put it at the base of hanger instead of hanging it even though hanger is at perfect height for her to hang her coats/jackets.
Oh and there is also one exception to this i.e if my wife is around, kids will do the things properly coz their mom is pretty strict about it but their dad give them leeway :)
