My kid’s room is very cluttered, but she keeps the floor clean after some well headed threats by me. I do have to quietly go through her mountains of special stuff covering every surface and purge. If she doesn’t notice it’s gone, it can’t be THAT special.

My kids have to tidy their room for the cleaner once a week. My messiest one (of 3) is my ADHD / hoarder/ mad scientist 12 yo. She has a zillion stuffed animals, and every week she has to put them all in a basket, floors have to be clear, and tops of dresser and desk have to be useable. We do a big clean out twice a year, which is our happy medium, since she gets very emotionally attached to her creations. She also "rents" space from her sister's bedroom. She is constantly creating things out of knickknacks or random art supplies, so during the week it becomes a disaster. Then at least it resets a bit.

Anonymous wrote:Total hellscape. Lego all over the floor, weird creations of putty and string and plastic animals, etc. I did not want to spend the time every day on this issue and they both loved making "set-ups" of villages or whatnot that they actually would play with over time. Both are older now and at some point voluntarily started keeping their rooms fairly neat.

Haha. Thanks for this.

Me - ADHD / messy room. But I’ve gotten a little better recently only because I hired a monthly cleaner so there’s a built in reset. (dH is messy too.)

11 yr old DD - very tidy. Often will leave out some figurines or something but in an orderly way. Has been asking for some additional shelving to help, which I need to order.

7 year old ADHD girl - disaster and I get overwhelmed and don’t know how to help. BUT I hired an orfanxier to work with her once and she got completely hyper focused and worked for 3 hrs and was thrilled. Recently a babysitter helped her organizer her room and she loves it. I think we should just get that babysitter every few weeks for a reset.

I don’t throw my kids’ stuff away without their permission BUT I give them trash bags and say for every bag they fill they get to pick one toy at goodwill. These days my 11 year old really doesn’t want stuff. She typically asks for things like tickets to an event / some sort of experience or like plants for her garden.

Finally, the professional organizer taught me (both for myself and my children) it’s really hard to stare at stuff and say “what should we get rid of?” Instead if you make a pile and say “grab everything from this pile you’d like to keep” it’s weirdly much easier. My 7 year old went through pile after pile of about 15 things where she’d pick about 5-8 of the things to keep.

Somewhere in between. She puts laundry away within a day or two of it being put in her room. She has a ton of stuff that is super meaningful to her. But, you can certainly walk in the room and move around. Having 6 Lego sets on her desk and dresser was the norm.

Ages 10-12 were the hardest because she wasn’t ready to give up calico critters or Lego, but also wanted lots of jewelry and stuff that was more “teen” (not really, but more grown). Finally at 12, we have turned a corner and she made a pretty major purge. Lots of the younger stuff (including books) are gone. While her room will always have way more stuff than I like (she gets this from my husband), it is much more manageable now.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Is your kid’s room neat and orderly or a mess? I don’t mean clean as in, do you dust and vacuum.

I’ll go first. I have a boy and a girl, 7 and 9. Both rooms are a cluttered mess with clothes and books everywhere. Too many stuffies, collected stuff, etc. and we’ve purged what they’re willing to give up. Anytime I’ve taken half a day to thoroughly organize and clean its back to this a week later. I just don’t have time to focus on it anymore with doing literally everything else with the house and planning their activities.

They have other chores in the house that to me are more important for our whole family, and not sure they have time for more right now.

Do you just leave it a mess?

They aren't willing to give up anything. You, the parent, need to make that decision. "Does this toy from 2021 that she played with once really bring my daughter joy? Will she notice it's gone?" My kids room are both very tidy because I don't let them keep crap they've accumulated over the years. If I don't see them playing with it, bye-bye.

Shut up Kondo

My DDs room is messy. I've started to throw stuff out. Anything on the floor goes into the trash. That's how I handle it. My wife thinks I'm over the top

Very tidy but the room is basically only used for sleeping. No toys beyond a few stuffies, no food, no school work.

no, it is a huge mess. has always been a mess.

BTW she's 30!

Anonymous wrote:Is your kid’s room neat and orderly or a mess? I don’t mean clean as in, do you dust and vacuum.

I’ll go first. I have a boy and a girl, 7 and 9. Both rooms are a cluttered mess with clothes and books everywhere. Too many stuffies, collected stuff, etc. and we’ve purged what they’re willing to give up. Anytime I’ve taken half a day to thoroughly organize and clean its back to this a week later. I just don’t have time to focus on it anymore with doing literally everything else with the house and planning their activities.

They have other chores in the house that to me are more important for our whole family, and not sure they have time for more right now.

Do you just leave it a mess?

Let them manage their spaces as they prefer. To give them occasional inspiration, help them clean and organize once every few months.

Anonymous wrote:Is your kid’s room neat and orderly or a mess? I don’t mean clean as in, do you dust and vacuum.

I’ll go first. I have a boy and a girl, 7 and 9. Both rooms are a cluttered mess with clothes and books everywhere. Too many stuffies, collected stuff, etc. and we’ve purged what they’re willing to give up. Anytime I’ve taken half a day to thoroughly organize and clean its back to this a week later. I just don’t have time to focus on it anymore with doing literally everything else with the house and planning their activities.

They have other chores in the house that to me are more important for our whole family, and not sure they have time for more right now.

Do you just leave it a mess?

No. My kids had the messiest rooms but ironically are bothered by their how messy their roommates are so no idea where this world is going.

My kids rooms were always pretty messy. Every 2 weeks, they picked up the stuff on the floor so our cleaning person could vacuum. And periodically, I went in and did a big clean-out/purge, with or without assistance. (Sometimes these things are better accomplished alone.) But both of them were pretty messy most of the time.

As teens, one of my DSs gradually became more fastidious--the tidiest person in the family I would say--and as an adult he keeps his surroundings very neat. And one of my DSs (now 21) continues to be a slob. So I'm not sure how much my parenting style had an impact TBH. I very much agree with the PP that the life skills we think we are teaching don't necessarily travel with our kids when they leave.

As parent of young adult kids, I can tell you that my desire to teach them to keep their things tidy, did not follow them as they left the house. I should have let alot of it go. I thought I was teaching them life skills. Apparently not.

Anonymous wrote:Is your kid’s room neat and orderly or a mess? I don’t mean clean as in, do you dust and vacuum.

I’ll go first. I have a boy and a girl, 7 and 9. Both rooms are a cluttered mess with clothes and books everywhere. Too many stuffies, collected stuff, etc. and we’ve purged what they’re willing to give up. Anytime I’ve taken half a day to thoroughly organize and clean its back to this a week later. I just don’t have time to focus on it anymore with doing literally everything else with the house and planning their activities.

They have other chores in the house that to me are more important for our whole family, and not sure they have time for more right now.

Do you just leave it a mess?

They aren't willing to give up anything. You, the parent, need to make that decision. "Does this toy from 2021 that she played with once really bring my daughter joy? Will she notice it's gone?" My kids room are both very tidy because I don't let them keep crap they've accumulated over the years. If I don't see them playing with it, bye-bye.