My 6yo is a sweet, helpful little girl with a service-oriented spirit.
Usually.
She’ll offer to unload the dishwasher.
She readily helps me with dinner.
She’ll even strike a pose and hold it until my point-and-shoot decides to cooperate.
But good Lord Almighty in Heaven above, the child will not clean her room.
This is a normal state of affairs. It’s a ridiculous mess of clothes and bedding (and books) and a random array of tiny pieces of makeup, hair accessories and doll paraphernalia (and books) that little girls seem to leave in their wake like so much the cloud of dirt and dust that follows Pig-Pen wherever he goes.
We’ve tried everything, but nothing seems to make her take this seriously.
Obviously, we have some work to do.
We are on a learning curve with this child who is definitely wired differently from her older brother. And from her younger brother as well, if I dare make that supposition at this early date.
As an example, I just ran up and took a (blurry) photo of her older brother’s room. Completely unedited. This, also, is a normal state of affairs.
Conner is 14 going on 40, grumpy old soul that he often is; he’ll sooner be yelling at “the kids” to pick up their messes as not. I don’t have to bug him about his room. He’ll even dust it (though not well).
*sigh*
Soon after I took that photo of Olivia’s room she finally got it into her head to pick it up. I think she just got tired of hearing, “Not until you pick up your room,” every time she asked me for something.
Not bad..
Just give it five minutes.
Are your kids neat-freaks? Pig-Pens? What works for you to get them to clean up their own room? (If anything?;)
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{ 8 comments… read them below or add one }
Ugh!!! My daughter is the same way! I can’t stand it! All 4 of my kids are pretty messy, but the youngest 2, ages 4 & 6 will clean their room pretty quickly, but my daughter will take DAYS to clean her room!!
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Just see it as creative mind at work!
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Yea, yea, Jerilyn. And I remember how Carmen’s room always looked, so I hold onto that as there being hope for Olivia someday, too:)
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I never had a 6 year old that did any thing related to cleaning without supervision every time. Nice concept though.
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I have given up on the dream of the boys’ rooms being in a constant state of cleanliness. Our routine is that on Saturday before you do anything else, you clean, dust and sweep your room. The mess never gets more than a week old and I at least know it is foundationally clean, even if not visually appealing.
Now I am freaking out about the cell phone charger…
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Does your daughter bring her friends to her room? Nothing motivates me to tidy up like knowing I have guests coming over.
I also recommend the five minute clean up. Sometimes, when a room is a huge mess, it’s daunting. So, maybe before bed, spend five minutes putting things away. The goal isn’t to finish the room in five minutes, but just to tidy up for five minutes.
I’m a bit of a slob myself and I like to do the commercial clean up. I pick a show to watch and, when it goes to commercial, I start cleaning and tidying up. When the show comes back on, I stop, watch the show, and repeat.
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jolyn Reply:
December 15th, 2009 at 11:25 pm
She doesn’t have friends over regularly enough for that to work — none within walking distance, anyway. But when she does you should see how fast she can work. It’s all about motivation, and so far no one thing works. I could sit there and supervise every minute until she’s done, but she’s getting to the age where she just needs to do it. Or at least go through the motions, without me being on her every step of the way. That’s what we’re struggling with.
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I have both kinds.
My oldest son’s room was somewhat in order when he was under ten. When he hit the teenage years, the whole picture changed. By the time he left home, We had to repaint the room. LOL! My daughter, on the other hand LOVES organization. Her room has been the most organized room in our house. My second boy, who has such competitve personality, decided to have a contest with his older sister to see who could keep his/her room the neatest. It was music to my ears, needless to say. Till today, her room is still the best, brother took second place but I told my son that the contest is off as the baby has moved into his room and there is big adjustment to be made. We are hoping to rearrange the boys room in January. Will you consider the contest a method? I did. 
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jolyn Reply:
December 15th, 2009 at 11:22 pm
A contest totally counts! Sometimes I have set the timer, but sometimes that doesn’t work. Thing is, once she starts she knows how to do it. She’s just all drama. “Cleaning up is so boring!”
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We have a rule that the boys’ bedrooms have to be clean (bed made, no clothes on the floor, etc.) before they leave for school, or they don’t get to do anything on the weekends. It only took a couple of weekends spent with the folks rather than their middle school friends for them to figure out we were serious! We’ve now included the rule their cell phone chargers must be unplugged from the wall (in the spirit of saving on energy costs!) or they lose them for awhile. This of course leads to a dead cell phone which often leads to a dead social life! Ha!!
(Did you know that cell phone chargers suck energy even when they’re not charging cell phones?)
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jolyn Reply:
December 15th, 2009 at 11:05 pm
Oh my, Marilyn, yes. And so do Tv’s, computers, lights (even when off)…
If Olivia had one more thing she had to do in the morning before school, I think we’d both give up and just go back to bed.
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