Go To Your Room! (And clean it)

Years ago I heard a story about a family that had an exchange student. The host mother told the student to go "pick up her room". Some time later the host mom found the perplexed student standing in the middle of her room wondering how she was going to lift it. Ah, the English slang.

One of the great parent debates I've experienced is that of the clean bedroom. After all, rooms must be neat and tidy, mustn't they? A clean room is next to godliness and learning to take care of our belongings is an essential skill in childhood development. And so as soon as they can scoot across the floor we begin teaching our children how to put the plastic truck back in the toy basket. Pretty soon they are in 2nd grade and part of the evening routine is to clean the room before bed and of course their bed must be made in the morning before school.

Too bad it is not that simple.

We have to factor in temperment and later, activity schedules. I was one of those uber tidy kids who actually liked cleaning and arranging my room. I liked to keep it neat so I don't think I was ever even asked to go clean it because it already was. I was neat to a point that when I got done playing with my Barbies, I would dress them back in the original outfits they came in. (That's for another blog.)

Some of that was still in my system when my first child came along. I would put her books and toys back on the shelf in her room in the same place and run her Legos through the dishwasher. Don't worry, this got old pretty quickly, but when your kids are babies the truth is that it's usually mom who keeps the room clean. And it's fun to tend their stuff when they are so little.

Around the age of four I decided to add bed making to our daughter's list of skills. Of course she couldn't fluff and fold like someone five feet taller, and I had read a great parenting book by Dr. Kevin Leman that warned against correcting efforts so I praised her and left the lumps. I naively thought this was going to be a breeze.

I ended up trying every chart, reward system, tip and punishment to get that girl to clean her room all the way through high school. Everything worked. For while. Then the Technique got ADD.

Technique 1: Personally show your child exsactly what to do and where to look. When you follow up and point out what's still under the bed, you will hear "Uh, I forgot."

Technique 2: Write out the definition of a clean room on a card and laminate it. Instead of hearing yourself repeat all the things included in this task, merely point to the card and walk away. This will work very well until your irritated teen takes the card down and throws it away.

Technique 3: Establish a Take-Away box for anything left around the house after they go to bed. If your kid is like mine you'll need a big box. Place each item - no matter what it is and I mean even snow boots and violins - in the box. They have to buy back each item before they can have it back. If they leave an item in there for a few days, introduce the principle of compound interest. This worked well for years, actually. I ended up getting at least one "free" mocha a week and inspiring a whole group of other parents which made my daughter quite unpopular. If you are really brave you can introduce donations at the end of a month and really push the point and decrease clutter.

Technique 4: For the ultra slob, take everything out of their room except the mattress and 2 changes of clothes. Remove the doors too. Tell them they have to earn back their belongings by showing that they care about each item.

Technique 5: Set a day and time that the room must be cleaned up by. Do not allow your child to go anywhere until this goal is accomplished. We said our girl's room must be cleaned like a model home by noon each Saturday. At ten each Saturday I would leave the house and go to a coffee shop and do some studying, leaving my husband and baby to deal with the whining that accompanied our strict rule. If you are going to do this one, be sure and follow through by not letting your child go anywhere or you have defeated the purpose. And whatever you do, don't nag and don't get drawn into discussion.

We alternated between each of these techniques plus a few others until our girl hit 11th grade. The technique I sighed and finally adopted was called "close the door". All we asked is that there be no food in her room and that she keep the door closed at all times because it was a sight to behold. She was terrific about keeping the door closed (but we did find six former bowls of ice cream with the spoons stuck to the sides when we moved the week after graduation).

You wouldn't believe how many parents were aghast that I would be so slack with the clean room requirement. Boy did I get lectures about my own irresponsibility. If they didn't say it they showed their disapproval by the turn of their eyebrows and went home to nit pick on their kid. The one that was going to keep their room clean at the expense of a relationship of trust.

Well, she went off to college and got a neat-freak roommate who must have suffered dearly. Then she lived with other girls who were also comfortable with scattered pizza boxes and ice cream dishes on the floor. Then she shared a housewith people who ate up her food and broke her things. Then she lived alone and ... kept everything neat and clean, not just her bedroom. Then she got married and not only keeps things clean, is a talented decorator.

Who would have thought that the little girl who slept upside down on her bed and wrote in French with Sharpie all over her bedroom door would grow up to organize her kitchen, garden and have a room even dedicated to her art?

Would I do things any differently, knowing the outcome? Nope. Like I used to say to the parents that were convinced I had dropped the ball, if having a messy room is the worst thing my kid does, I have a great kid and I'll just shut the door.