Reply to My teen's room is a disaster...I am getting desperate...please help me help him

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]
My 15 year old will not throw anything out.  Anything.  His trash can is always empty, but piles and piles of papers, magazines, device cables, devices, books, clothes, food, empty food packages, empty water bottles, pens, pencils, are strewn all over the floor on a regular basis.  The only time this is not the case is when the cleaning lady comes.  She is a saint and doesn't complain.  I usually ask him to pick up before hand, but his approach is to pile all this stuff on top of his desk, which is piled high about 2 feet with books papers and junk and throw any clean clothes on the floor in his closet, rather than fold and put away.  He has plenty of shelf space to put books and papers, but he doesn't use it.  He will not let me help him organize anymore and will not throw anything out...even old papers from school.

When I do his laundry and ask him to put it away, nothing is put where it belongs, and consequently he can't find something important like a sports jersey or something he really needs.  Socks end up on the t-shirt drawer, athletic shorts end up in the pajama drawer...nothing is where it belongs.  It is really a problem to the point that i have started putting his stuff away for him because I can't take trying to help him find things or going out to buy new stuff because he lost them.  By the way, we did try having him fold and put away, and that was even worse.

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I have a son with extreme ADHD.  Here's what I would do:

1.  Things like water bottles and food would not be allowed in the room.  If he didn't follow the rules, he would not be allowed to have water in water bottles or food that is packaged.  If that was a problem, I'd stop buying the things that he is taking into his room.  We can live without having water bottles in our house and if my son can't manage them, we just do without.

2.  I realized a long time ago that my son's system of organization doesn't work for me.  So, I don't care if socks are in the sock drawer or the pants drawer.  Whether something is away is in the eye of the beholder.

3.  As for not being able to find things, the clothing my son needs for his team sports are kept in my bedroom.  All shoes are kept in a shelf by the back door.  Everything else, I don't care because it doesn't inconvenience me. I really don't care if he wears mismatched clothes or if he doesn't have sock to wear because he can't find them.

4.  Laundry is a problem.  I got rid of dressers and put shelves in his closet.  He can keep his clothes in a laundry basket for all I care.  He also has a hamper in his room.  They can be kept on the closet floor.

5.  Rather than allowing my son to take papers and the like into his bedroom, I put a basket by the back door.  A few times a year we work together to clean it out.  It works best to do it at night because he tends to be more capable of organizing things and making decisions to throw things away.

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