I was the kid with the messy bedroom. None of my siblings were particularly tidy, but I was definitely the worst and the rest of them outgrew this disorder. I, however, remember a childhood full of my parents struggling to get me to clean up my room.
And now, as a parent—well, let’s just say the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree.
Nothing has seemed to help. The kids’ rooms are almost always a mess. I’ve even gone so far as temporarily taking away all their toys. (I say temporarily, even though some of those toys are STILL in the basement.) It’s miraculous, though. Somehow, the rooms become disastrous again, and more toys magically appear to fill the space vacated by the confiscated ones. One good birthday can feasibly fill up an entire bedroom floor all over again.
When I was a kid, this is how it usually went:
- Mom or Dad sends me to clean my room.
- I sit in the room, push piles of stuff around the floor, and stare at the mess rather hopelessly.
- Mom or Dad checks on me, observes that no progress had been made, and tells me to get to work.
- I stare at the mess even more, and it seems so insurmountable a task that I feel incapable of even knowing how to begin.
- Finally, Mom breaks down and helps me clean it.
- Even though I loved the feeling of a clean room, by the next day, the first signs of a new mess is evident, and within a week, it’s back to the state of its original disaster.
That same process is almost exactly what happens with my own kids now. In the end, my wife and I always seem to end up helping them clean, which really means we do most of it ourselves.
A few days ago, we started the process of having them clean their rooms. No progress happened. They would pick up an item, then find something to distract themselves, and an hour later, the mess would still be the same.
But yesterday, my wife made a decision. She announced to the children that they would not be allowed out of their rooms until they were clean. They were invited to a sleepover, but we declined that invitation on their behalf. They weren’t allowed out for meals or for any other reason than to use the restroom, and even that had a limit to avoid them needing to use the restroom every five minutes.
They were in there all day. About an hour before bedtime, Aidan finally decided he’d had enough. He finished just before bedtime so that he wouldn’t miss out on anything more the next day.
The girls, however, made no progress at all. In fact, I think the room got messier. I informed them that, in addition to being confined to their room, their meals would consist of dry toast and warm water until the room was finished. (I admit this was overly theatric, but it seemed to be a consistent element in every fairy tale I ever read.) This morning, it was dry toast and warm water for the girls in their room while Aidan ate cereal at the dining table and then watched a TV show.
By 11:00am, I looked in to see the room in exactly the same state of disarray. I started to think that this was never going to work.
And suddenly, just before noon, that mysterious switch apparently flipped for both of them. 24 hours of being confined to their bedrooms was apparently enough time for them. They started cleaning.
An hour and a half later, they were done.
I don’t know if it would have worked for me as a kid or not, but either way, I’m convinced my wife was a genius. Well, the dry toast thing was mine, but I think this success is mostly a stroke of genius for my wife.
