When to give up on teens keeping rooms clean?

[Anonymous]

I spend so much time telling my teens to pick-up after themselves. I’m tired of it and it’s making me a miserable parent. Dad doesn’t help enforce any rules. Should I just give up?

[Anonymous]

Sort of?

I enforce no food in room.

Then I let them manage their room how they want. Once a month they dust and vacuum it and get all the paper garbage thrown out

[Anonymous]

I let it go with my 16 yr old DD. Just turned a blind eye. We rarely saw her floor, it was covered with layers of clothes, and it was filthy. This lasted many months.
But a switch went off - it took her a week to clean it. She made toss, keep, donate piles. She was constantly vacuuming.
She got it clean, and is committed to keeping it clean. So far so good. She asked for her own dust buster.
We’ll see but I think it worked out to let her manage it.

[Anonymous]

I have never had this expectation. I do 'help' them clean up a few times a month though.

[Anonymous]

Weekly check - clean before they can go out with friends as incentive.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Sort of?

I enforce no food in room.

Then I let them manage their room how they want. Once a month they dust and vacuum it and get all the paper garbage thrown out

This, kind of. I enforce no food and no damp towels lying around. And I won’t wash anything that isn’t in the hamper.

Once a month or so I get mad on a Saturday and make them clean- sweep, dust, throw away papers and obvious garbage- before they can go anywhere.

[Anonymous]

Definitely nit a hill do die on. Agree about enforcing things like no food in there (good luck, they'll sneak it), and no piles of wet anything.

But really, walk past their rooms without looking (shut their door if necessary), and let them live in their own pig-stye.

FWIW, mine are slobs, even when they come home, but kept their shared dorm rooms relatively OK (you have to when there's not that much space and you're sharing it with another person)

[Anonymous]

When they were kid, I forced my kids to clean their room. About the time they became teens, I gave up. But I don't allow them to invite friends over unless the areas those kids will go is clean. (This includes our basement, family room, kitchen, and guest bathroom, which they have to clean before inviting friends over.)

By 16, 2 of the 3 started keeping their rooms relatively clean on their own. One never came around.

[Anonymous]

Whatever you decide, just set it and forget it. No reminders. So make it something easy, like taking their car keys or whatever it is.

I’m not sure this is the hill I would die on, personally, but if it’s important to you just set the consequence and then do it. No nagging.

[Anonymous]

I was a messy teen and it took me a long time to learn how to keep my spaces more or less clean. I wish I had more help. But in hindsight, I understand better that my mom really struggles with organizing/clutter. I didn’t know how to manage it either, and once things get untidy it’s a lot harder to keep clean. My brain just tunes everything out.

So even though they’re kind of distinct tasks, I needed a lot more help with tidying/organizing and then the cleaning part came pretty easily. But only in sequence.

One moment of clarity for me in case it helps others. I was in a preschool classroom. Every day, twice a day, the whole room was basically trashed. And then within 10 minutes, it was totally tidy. That’s because everything had an easily understood and accessible home. So it was just a matter of quickly putting things away and doing a little cleaning.

If you couldn’t tidy your teen’s room in a half hour, it’s probably not as organized as it should be and/or has too much stuff. So when you say “clean your room,” it’s actually a pretty big and complex task. They’re probably going to get overwhelmed and end up just shoving the pile in a closet or just walking away entirely.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Definitely nit a hill do die on. Agree about enforcing things like no food in there (good luck, they'll sneak it), and no piles of wet anything.

But really, walk past their rooms without looking (shut their door if necessary), and let them live in their own pig-stye.

FWIW, mine are slobs, even when they come home, but kept their shared dorm rooms relatively OK (you have to when there's not that much space and you're sharing it with another person)

I’m the PP who came from the clutter house and living in the freshman dorm was like a revelation to me. I was suddenly a clean and tidy person! I loved it. In retrospect it’s obviously because I didn’t have like, all the clothes and toys I had ever owned crammed in there. I didn’t change personalities, I just had an appropriate amount of stuff in a semi-organized space for the first time.

[Anonymous]

Both of my kids had rooms that were pretty much unspeakable in high school as far as clothes/clutter, but no food. DD is in college and has turned a corner and now would like her living space to be decently neat most of the time and as far as I can tell it is. DS in high school will hopefully get there someday.

[Anonymous]

My kids cannot go out to socialize or have friends over if their rooms are not clean. It's not perfect, but it usually gets them to a decent state.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:When they were kid, I forced my kids to clean their room. About the time they became teens, I gave up. But I don't allow them to invite friends over unless the areas those kids will go is clean. (This includes our basement, family room, kitchen, and guest bathroom, which they have to clean before inviting friends over.)

By 16, 2 of the 3 started keeping their rooms relatively clean on their own. One never came around.

Same approach (no friends unless it’s clean). But I also enforce an entire cleaning once a month (weekend before the cleaning service comes in) and if they don’t do it by a specific time their phones get locked on my car. So I know at least once a months the floor is vacuumed and washed.

[Anonymous]

I am relatively lax with organization but have a high standard in terms of cleaning. BUT, as this is my standard and not necessarily theirs (yet), I do help. For me it is more important that they get used to clean spaces as the “normal” state of things than for them to be 100% in charge of cleaning. Maybe this is because that was the way I grew up, and then living on my own I kept it that way, while DH’s family was big on “if you want to live like a pig so be it” and guess what, he and his siblings got used to it. It took several years for my DH to start noticing dirt and taking care.