Away From Politics--What Else Is Driving Me Crazy?

[MawMaw]

How old are your girls? I'd just leave it messy. They'll get tired of it after while when they realize mama is not gonna clean it up for them!
I raised 2 sons too....not QUITE as messy as girls it seems LOL! They just stink worse! LOL
And T2W is right, don't sweat it too much. They do grow up fast.

BTW, love that hard wood floor in their room! And they have good taste in CHOCOLATE!!!

[Azzan]

My experience with my girls is that as teenagers, they were just plain messy. There were times you couldn't see the floor of my youngest daughter's room. As they matured they became more organized. Your mileage may vary.

What about making them do their own laundry?

[Cindy]

Do they have too many activities?

[rgcraig]

I like T2W's advice!

Just close the door.

[rgcraig]

And....if it helps to know - - my daughter's room would look like this all the time and now she has two babies and keeps a very picked up, clean house!

I heard her just this weekend tell someone that she was raised in a neat home so she guessed that's why she was picky now.

You would have never been able to tell it by her room. But, how I kept the rest of the house was what she learned from. I just never allowed food in her room.

[MissBrattified]

Originally Posted by Cindy

Looks pretty normal to me. Do they know you will eventually clean it up?

Originally Posted by Sweet Pea

This might be the key. They know what your limit is.

Well. I am guilty as charged. I get tired of it and clean it up. I do have a breaking point.

Originally Posted by Lacey

How old are your girls? I'd just leave it messy. They'll get tired of it after while when they realize mama is not gonna clean it up for them!
I raised 2 sons too....not QUITE as messy as girls it seems LOL! They just stink worse! LOL
And T2W is right, don't sweat it too much. They do grow up fast.

BTW, love that hard wood floor in their room! And they have good taste in CHOCOLATE!!!

They are 17 and 15. And I am so surprised that my son is so much neater than the girls! I thought it would be the opposite. The chocolate: I brought those home from a church event where we had s'mores and all the chocolate bars disappeared within 24 hours! LOL!!!

Lacey, believe it or not, that is not hard wood. That is vinyl adhesive flooring. Cost is cheap, cheap (about .79/sq. foot), and it is SUPER durable and easy to clean. We put it down in the kids rooms and the hallway, after ripping out the old, nasty carpet that was in there when we bought the house. We couldn't afford real hard wood at the time, and I've always thought carpet was impractical for kids' rooms--especially with pets. It was a good decision, and you really can't tell the difference just by looking at it. It went directly down onto a primed concrete slab. My sister tried the same stuff in her bathroom on a plywood floor and it keeps peeling up. I don't know if that's because of the plywood, or if it could be the dampness in the bathroom. The downside is: It's not real wood and it's not very eco-friendly (so I've been told). I ordered from this place: http://www.globalbms.com/index.php/vinyl-plank.html

Originally Posted by Azzan

My experience with my girls is that as teenagers, they were just plain messy. There were times you couldn't see the floor of my youngest daughter's room. As they matured they became more organized. Your mileage may vary.

What about making them do their own laundry?

Okay, this I haven't done...at least, not very well. Oldest girl does her own laundry sometimes, anyway, because she wants to keep her clothes together. My mother sometimes washes clothes and gets the girls' clothes and mine mixed up. Youngest girl will dump everything she owns into the washer, including dry-clean only clothing, jackets, clean clothes that she doesn't want to put away and even her iPod--which somehow has come through the washer and dryer twice and still works. She was very sad about a very expensive skirt that was ruined--her Dad bought her a very nice outfit this summer, and the whole thing is dry clean only. She threw the skirt in the laundry after I warned her not to and it shrunk. I hated that she lost her beautiful skirt, but I think it was a good lesson about checking tags. At least, you would think.

[Ferd]

Originally Posted by MissBrattified

My thinking is, how on earth are they going to keep an entire house clean someday if they can't keep a single room clean? I'm sure their future husbands will have expectations of clean clothing put away, made beds and clean floors. At the very least.



I tried this one time--I bagged everything up and put it out in my shed. But, they actually needed things that were in the bags (school notebooks, shoes, etc.) and so I caved within a few days. My fault.

I did think about removing everything except their school uniforms and school shoes. Church clothes, they'd have to wear whatever is actually hanging in the closet.

What do you suggest for earning it back?

keep the room picked up. for one.

then other stuff like using a toothbrush to clean grout in your tile... fun stuff like that.

deep cleaning projects.... the real key is not caving....

oh and if you have something they need, then they can have it but they have to trade something they have and dont need (but really like) to get it.

[KeptByTheWord]

I like T2W's advice... they do grow up way too quickly. I have two teenagers. My daughter is neat and tidy, (*but didn't always use to be!) and my son, usually always neat and tidy when younger, now allows his room to sometimes get in disrepair. LOL.
Still haven't figured that one out... but...

I understand your dilemma. Just walking by that room would stress me out to no end. Here are some suggestions...

1. I guess you could always just keep the door shut, and not have to see the mess.

2. You could pick a day to go in with the girls, and do a head-to-toe cleaning of the room. Then sit down, at the end of it all, and explain that anything left on the floor longer than 24 hours goes in a trash bag. In order to get it back, they must perform certain chores around the house. Make a list of things that typically might land on the floor... clothing, books, shoes... and determine a chore if each one falls onto the floor, in order to earn it back.

Sounds tedious, and you will have to do some serious work as a parent to keep this discipline... but I think if you put a good effort towards it, for at least a month or so, you'll see results. And, you may be pleased to see that doing hated dreaded chores is worse than sloppiness...

3. If these don't work... go back to T2W's suggestion...

Let us know what you decide to do... I'm very interested in what you decide to do

[rgcraig]

Oh, and when they start dating you can always have their date pick them up from their room - - I bet they'd clean it then. LOL!!

[MissBrattified]

Originally Posted by Cindy

Do they have too many activities?

Our week is pretty full, but I don't know if they have *too many.* They have homework in the evenings, piano and Hannah has to take care of her horses. Tuesday afternoon they have piano lessons after school, Wednesday night is church, Thursday night is music (only for Hannah).

Originally Posted by rgcraig

I like T2W's advice!

Just close the door.

This is probably what I will end up doing. After I go in and put sheets on their beds and dust and pick up their dirty clothes and sweep and mop. I do know that part of the problem is that they have way too many clothes. When they were younger I would declutter a couple of times a year and take out everything they had outgrown and worn out. Now they don't really outgrow anything and the nice stuff pretty much stays nice. So they are collecting.... Maybe we need to set aside a day and see what I can talk them into donating to Goodwill. Maybe we need to not shop for clothes again until they're in college.

Originally Posted by rgcraig

And....if it helps to know - - my daughter's room would look like this all the time and now she has two babies and keeps a very picked up, clean house!

I heard her just this weekend tell someone that she was raised in a neat home so she guessed that's why she was picky now.

Well, that makes me hopeful!! Hopefully once they're in charge of their own space, they'll take a little more pride in it.

You would have never been able to tell it by her room. But, how I kept the rest of the house was what she learned from. I just never allowed food in her room.

FOOD IN THE ROOM!!! I forgot about that one!!! Major problem, because we live in the country, and we struggle with mice. I took a broom the other day and swept everything out from under Sarah's bed, and there was a plethora of candy and flaming hot cheetos.