Their Room, Their Laundry, Their Mess!
'Is your teen expected to clean his/her own room? Percentage of the time its actually clean, and what do you do when it's not? Is your teen expected to clean his/her own laundry? Part of the time or all of the time? What do you to keep their mess from spreading throughout the house?' - Denise
Tips From Our Community:
'In our house we have three unbreakable house rules: 1. Eat only in the kitchen. 2. Make your bed EVERY day. 3. Put all dirty clothes in the basket in the laundry room. I also expect their rooms to stay reasonably neat (dresser cleared off, nothing scattered on the floor, clothes put away, etc.) I have three sons, ages 13, 9, and 6. The one who has trouble following the rules is (surprise!) the 13-year-old. But for all his grousing and complaining about having to keep his room clean, he knows that he will not be allowed to go out or have friends over until his room is checked. The kids also have other household chores to be done before more pleasant activities. Occasionally we do some large cleaning or yardwork task, and they are all expected to help out. My philosophy is, if you live in this house, you can help with its upkeep. I like to be able to have an unexpected guest drop by, and not have to be embarrassed about the condition of my house. My advice for people with very young children...START NOW! A two-year-old enjoys "helping" with clean-up tasks, and you can set your expectations now, rather than letting it get out of hand by waiting until children are pre-teens to decide you'd like their room to be kept clean. Hope this helps someone out there. Parenting is never easy, but I really believe that parents are there to set and ENFORCE guidelines, rules, etc. Kids need limits and they look to us adults to set them. :)' - FAITH5C'My 13 yr old does have to keep his room tidy. I think having some responsibility for certain things teaches him that we all live in the house and we all have certain jobs to do. Then when he is in the 'real world' he will know that even though you may not like to do certain things, sometimes you just have to. The other few chores he has are: doing the dishes at night (but he gets paid $2 a night for that), putting his already folded clean laundry away and making his school lunch. As he gets older he will be given more responsibilities just he will get more privelages. He is usually O.K. with his jobs, but he has his days!' - JATOSI
'As far as cleaning their rooms, they have to keep the floors uncluttered. I tease them that if there was a fire or other emergency and the floor was a mess I'm not coming in to rescue them and wind up tripping over a toy or clothes on the way. We also found that if it gets really bad they know we will come in their rooms with a bag and take the clutter away. Then they have to "buy" back each item for .25 cents. If they haven't claimed the items back in 3-4 months, they didn't need them and we give it to a charity like the Salvation Army. Laundry....I do the laundry because it is simpler. But they have to fold and put their clothes away. My 13yo daughter even does her own ironing. The rest of the house....if they don't clean it up, I will and then they don't know where the items are. They have learned it is better for them to do it or they have to go on a search and rescue mission.' - KAREND7
at the Parenting of Adolescents Site |
