Training Your Children to Tidy Their Rooms

Almost every parent faces this problem. Some parents learn to ignore it, while others wreck their nerves over it. It leads to frustration, and countless fights and arguments. Neither is desirable. So, here are some tips to overcome it:

Typically, the child’s room is overflowing with things, and there is not enough space in the cupboards and drawers. So, the first thing to do is to provide more space for their stuff, which may appear useless to you but is very precious for them. You might have to invest in additional shelves, boxes under the bed, or chests of drawers.

It is best to have enough storage space so that there is still some room for more. It will help the child to find what he is looking for easily without scattering everything across the floor. Moreover, kid stuff goes on adding everyday. If there is enough space then the new things will also find a place rather than keep lying around.

Once you have solved the storage problem, it is time to establish a routine and appropriate expectations. Every child is different. Some, amazingly, seem to be born with the "tidy gene". Most are not. Also, their definition of tidiness may be very different from yours. Don't expect them to keep their room spotless every single minute of every day. Instead, try to establish, preferably by negotiation, what a reasonable standard of tidiness is, and how often that should be achieved.

Which leads on to the next consideration. What is your goal? Is your goal to teach your children how to responsibly look after their belongings - or is it that their untidiness upsets and irritates you? This is important because, in order to achieve the first goal, you will need to allow them to fail at times - ie, not tidy up, and live with the consequences of that. Which may mean that you have to put up with their untidiness for a bit longer!

You need to establish reasonable expectations, such as putting things away before bedtime and a once-a-week thorough tidy-up. Then you can draw up some kind of contract.

In this you should spell out the consequences for success and failure. Give clear indications of what the rewards or punishments would be.

Again, it is better to focus on rewards such as privileges earned based on achieving the goal. This can be combined with a chart system connected to other chores.

In rare cases you can use some punishments for failure, but only as a last resort. And, the punishment should commensurate with the crime. You may want to try out the "black bag" technique, which is to put all scattered things in a big black bag which will be thrown into the attic, basement or garage for a week. If they tidy up the room by next Saturday, they can have it back. If not, then the next week's black bag collection is also thrown into the basement. This continues until they do some tidying up!

Key to the process, however, is a total absence of shouting or other punishments. All is done calmly. At the appointed time you simply go up to the room and gather up the offending articles.

You will need to do it only a couple of times because if you mean business, most children will hate the sight of the black bag and tidy up the room before they have to set eyes on it again.

There may be times when you want their room to be tidied because you are expecting guests. This is your need and you need to borrow your child's room for a night or two. So, don’t include this in the contract. For this, you must give extra incentives for tidying up the room.

Article Source: http://publisherscloninghouse.com

Dr. Noel Swanson has a free newsletter with expert parenting advice and also regularly writes for Yes Parenting website.
Click here for other unique parenting articles.

Please Rate this Article 5 out of 54 out of 53 out of 52 out of 51 out of 5  Not yet Rated

Click this Icon to Receive Adoption Articles Via RSS!