"When in Doubt,Throw it Out": What Happens when Mom Cleans Your Room

A Bedroom with a Beach ThemeGetting my now teenager to clean her room was always a hassle. Clutter drives me absolutely bonkers and she couldn't seem to care less that you couldn't see the floor in her room for all the clutter.

As with most parenting dilemmas I have had, I decided the best way to change my child's behavior was to first adjust my attitude. All those years we fought about her room, it was MY problem, I was the one stressed by the clutter. So I decided to turn the tables and make her clutter HER problem. My daughter felt, as most kids probably feel, that it is her room so she should be able to keep it in whatever condition she likes. However, her room is in my house, therefore its condition should be to my housekeeping standards, not hers.

So one weekend when she was at her grandmother's house, I decided to clean her room. I had forewarned her that if she did not clean her room I would, and likely she would not be happy with the results. Armed with a trash bag, a laundry basket and my phone, I entered. Everything on the floor was deemed garbage, after all, if she cared about it then it wouldn't be in a heap on the floor, would it? Nope. Any clothing I found went into the laundry basket, clean or not, if its not hung up or in a drawer, its dirty. I didn't organize anything, she could decide where things belonged, I just cleaned up the space. Then I looked under her bed, and saw to my horror, all the clean clothes I had some nicely washed and folded for her shoved under the bed in piles just as they were given to her to put away. I got my phone out and called her. I told her I was cleaning under her bed and she said nothing for a long time and then broke the silence with a single word "Sorry." Sorry was not going to cut it. I told her because the clothes had been under her bed they were now dirty. I asked her who she thought was going to wash those clothes and she very smartly said "me." Correct! I took the laundry basket downstairs where it sat in front of the washer for two days awaiting her return. I told her that should I find anything even remotely like that under her bed again, she would be forever doing her own laundry. Anything she managed to put into the hamper would be sorted out and left on the laundry room floor for her and whether or not she had clean clothes would solely depend on her ability to keep up with her own laundry.

I told her we would have weekly room inspections and if even a dust bunny was under her bed that she would be grounded, which in my house means losing all electronic privileges as well. No WIFI makes for a cranky teen, after all the world is going on around them but they can't stay connected. There are two things my teen craves and those are (1) freedom and (2) privacy. When deciding consequences for any bad decisions, I make sure that the consequences negatively impact either her freedom or her privacy, or both.

Will this be the last time we argue about her room, probably not. Though I have noticed that in the weeks since my cleaning out of her room she had kept it relatively neat. I supposed I should really look under the bed before I get too giddy...