How to Clean Out the Junk

Spring cleaning is the perfect time to declutter a teenagers room. Why? Because everyone is doing it. It is a seasonal routine.

In our home, we choose one Saturday for everyone to stay at home and spring clean. Everyone, including myself, was responsible for getting one room cleaned out. Here are a few tips from my experiences.

• Write a list of what you expect. Set the expectations down in writing, and your teen will have no questions as to when they are done. Do this for yourself and the room you will be doing too.

• Invest in organizers, storage bins, hangers, shoe racks, etc. You can't organize things unless you have a place to put them in the first place. Let your teen have some input on what they think they might need to get their room organized.

• Obtain three empty boxes for each person. Label them 'garbage', 'goodwill' and 'out of place'. As your teen cleans out their closet, desk and under their bed, these boxes should start filling up. Make sure you take the goodwill boxes to your local drop off as soon as possible, or they may be sitting around until next spring.

• After the first hour, check to see how they are doing. If they are acting like the task is insurmountable, give them a smaller task. In other words if they are trying to clean out their entire room all at the same time, let them know it will go faster if they choose just one area at a time.

• Allow them to rearrange their room. If my teens were allowed, they would rearrange their rooms on a daily basis. They really like to move things around the way they like it. It gives them a little control of their world.

• Plan something fun for the family afterward. If everything doesn't get done, you always can get back to it tomorrow. Rome wasn't built in a day.