How to Get Kids to Clean Their Own Room

Thanks for that rustyf, you should not be negotiating with you children, do it or else!

I'm no parent, hell i just turned 21, but i can already say only a couple of these arent idiotic. step 2? fuckin dumb. maybe if you want to train the child to be some sort of obediant slave or something.

Step 1 and three are good though. make a game of it to keep the kid's interest, see how well they can make a shot of a wad of crumpled up useless homework leftovers from across the hall. Counting toys for the younger ones is decent, but making a reward for cleaning their room being you spend more time with them? what are you an ass? you spend time with your kid cause you spawned them, not because they did something you wanted.

four and five are good. especially if the kid is gamer minded. rewarding is a good idea, considering if you're like me, you grew up with a subconscious memory of exactly WHERE in that mess of a room everything was, and you got screwed over whenever you put things where they were "supposed" to be. Make it a time trial or memory test.

six is just dumb. it shows that you are indeed a clean nazi, by posting a picture on their friggin door to make them feel like crap for not having a clean room.

here's a tip. especially for the older "kids". test them. before you go blabbering on about a clean room (though even i agree, take the damn food OUT before it spoils.) test them on where things are. if they can say, offhand, while doing something else, the exact location of where soemthing is, without looking, or where they last saw it, then maybe you should simply back off, because obviously, while it may look bad to you, they know where their stuff is, and THAT is what's most important. not how the room looks, but that they know where their things are. if they start getting irritated with how the room looks or not being able to find stuff, i can speak from experience, they'll clean it themselves, WITHOUT your input.

and that's what you WANT them to do.

I only agree on step 5 and 6. The rest are useless unless you have too much time.

My children cleaned up their room after I canceled several playdates and sleepovers. Children all have too many toys, books, and media materials. Helping them organizing their space is very important. Plus, given them incentive to get rid of toys and books. I help them sell some books and toys over craiglist. Half of the receipts go to charity of their choices and half go to new toys. I match 50%.

I have to agree with the old school method. This is not a negotiations process, you are the parent and they are the children who need to abide by your rules you set in the house. If not there will be punishments...take toys away that cannot be picked up. If they cannot be resposible for their toys they need not play with them. This article of how to get kids to clean their rooms is one of the many reasons why our kids today don't know how to do anything for themselvs, and have a huge lack of respect for the elders. I am a young mother of 3 and still get compliments today on how well behaved my children behave. 20-30 years ago there would be no compliments it would be expected!!! Today our children are spoiled and lazy!

Sorry, it's not ModernMom, it's Nancy S. Buck that needs a dose of my kids for a reality check.

Let's see, I have a couple of comments. I have raised 7 kids, never got on tv for having a larte family and got rich from it. I had a couple of ideas. I grew up in the old school, the good one, that said if you make the punishment more severe than the joy they get from doing it, they will not do it. Spank their butts. Or you can do as I did with them to start with. I tell them that I bought the toy and if it is found in the floor again and not in the toy box where it belongs, I will throw it in the trash and it will nto come back out, it is gone. I don't play with it, so I am not going to put it up. Stick with it. So they don't pick it up, toss it, at least you won't have to pick it up again. Parents give their kids to much today and that is why they are prone to be as they are, and not enough stern deciline. I know most will not agree with me, but believe me it works. Both suggestions, trust me I have been there and done that.

I think that this should work for me...I am only 13 years
old. My mama has tried everything. I think that this will way(:

Do any of the readers actually EXPECT this to work on teenagers, or older kids? Seriously, we know that won't work, but that doesn't mean it is bad advice. I remember a few of these from my young years, and I liked it. My dad would throw my stuffed animals to me, and I would rush to put them away before the next one was thrown. I thought it was a fun little game, granted I was 4, but it worked.

For the people who keep saying this means bad parenting, that's bullshit. It works, the kid doesn't complain, and it promotes a "happy" experience, rather than a negative and reproachful one. It is a rare kid who's room actually stays perfect at all times.

or... we could teach our kids to do what they are told. Why, that's just crazy talk!

I go nuts with my Godson because everyone makes a game out of everything for him. He completely rules the dinner table and everything else because of advise like this.

I have a son, he has responsibilities, if he doesn't maintain his areas of responsibility, there are consequences. He has had responsibilities since he was two years old, as he grows, so do his responsibilities.

Teaching a kid responsibility seems more important to me than teaching them that you have to -literally- do a song and a dance to get them to do what they should be doing anyway.

my mom tells me this everyday, but my room still looks like a pigpen. she has repeated steps one through five to me for the last year. Hasn't helped....

I think some of these were co-opted from "Super Nanny"

when i was a kid i was told to "do your homework" and i did it no because of any deal ...i did it because if i did'nt id get my butt snaked. respect is the one thing that is missing. your kids don't respect you because you , as parents on a whole, don't follow up on any threats. i knew that if i did not do as i was told i was in for it. which is also why we have these punk kids that walk around and think nothing about disrespecting elders. i see this and it drives me nuts, i feel like smacking the #*@% out of some punk kid , and then i realize that its not there fault, i should follow them home and smack the #*@% out of the parents. talking to your kid is great...but when you tell them to do something the only answer accepted is yes sir or yes mam. THAT'S WHY I DON'T HAVE KIDS!!!! I COULD NEVER FIND A WOMAN WHO HAC THE SAME VALUES!!! beat your kids often! i won't call the cops on you ...as an after thought "time outs" are a joke.

A rake&Garbage bag work great!You only need to do it once.It is also fun to see them root through the garbage to find all of their"valuable"items they forgot they had!!

Here is another Paddle their rear end and tell them you run the house not them.When they own their own home than they can live like a slob but also set an example.If you as a parent tend to be a little messy than lead by example and clean up your act too.

My kids get warned that I'm coming with the vacuum and anything still on the floor is going into a bag for charity. If they still haven't cleaned by the time I come back, I bring a bag and start filling it with toys. Boy does that get them moving.

My mother was a practitioner of "If you don't, I will." Everything in the trash can and no new things (including holidays and birthdays) until I buy it myself or stop breaking, loosing, trashing what I have. Double lesson learned: keep up with your stuff and nothing is free in life. No incentives offered or witheld, no grounding, no spanking (after age 12), no threats of anything. My mother offered only a black garbage bag, a heavy heart, and determination to have a home worth living in.

Even now I find myself doing this with my husband. If we don't pick it up, keep it safe, put it back where it belongs, once every 3 months I do "insane" cleaning and throw it out. I give him (and myself) a week or two notice and then it's gone. The only exception is the junk box. A box in the spare bedroom to toss things we are keeping but don't have the time or place to put away yet.

I'm a nanny and when we need to pick up we play a game where we have a remote from an RC car and one of us is the pick up robot. We take turns with the remote and then "control" the other to pick up.

Kid's who don't clean their rooms are lazy. Bad parenting skills!

Thanks for the laugh! This and many other things never worked for me as a kid. Beyond 2 yrs old I can't see any of this working nor do I see this type of "encouragement" creating long term skills as each of them require parental participation.

Parents need to get a spine.