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The most fun, creative, effective people at my job have the messiest desks.
There is a vast difference between being dirty and being messy. I am clean, but messy. I have stacks. I know exactly what is in each stack. A few times a year I go through and "organize". Except then I can no longer easily find anything.
OP, do NOT throw out your daughter's things. She will resent you forever. You may no longer have a good, obedient daughter after that either.
You are waaaaay too uptight about "messiness." And imposing a "minimalist" environment on a child who obviously NEEDS to be surrounded by her "things" is outrageous, mean-spirited, cruel and selfish.
Perhaps if you had REAL PROBLEMS to deal with, you wouldn't focus on the ONE THING your child has for herself - her "things." To be this controlling is setting your child up for so many issues with perfectionism. Read up on it!!!
This is a compliant child - maybe the only thing she has left that is her own is her environment. Thank your lucky stars that she is not rebelling by doing drugs or engaging in early sexual promiscuity.
Your need for your child to give up her personal possessions is the problem, not your child's "messiness."
I know this is harsh but unless your daughter is hoarding moldy food and peeing in jars and keeping it in the closet, a clutter or messiness problem is not really a problem - unless you make it one.
PS> i should add . . . when daughters, especially, start wanting to have friends stay over, they often change their behaviors on their own. How often does she have friends stay over? Maybe planning some overnight get togethers would be exactly what she needs to decide on her own to better contain and organize her room. Then it would be her own idea and it wouldn't be yet another compliance issue.
Exactly. I'm going to add a few thoughts to the mix. I've heard from so many posters that messiness is some kind of character defect that must be fixed. It isn't. It's a characteristic, like being outgoing, nervous, or musically inclined. Some people are messier than others. As long as people aren't so disgusting that it threatens their health, there's nothing wrong with it in my eyes. I was your daughter, and still am. I am a messy person. I will probably always be that way. I was an honors student in college, went to graduate school full time while working a full time job, also never got in trouble with drugs or alcohol, moved out of my home and got my own apartment at age 15, and have been a very responsible person overall. But clutter accumulates in my home, and I don't care. I clean when I get around to it. I keep up with my important papers and always keep my food cleaned up. And the sky doesn't fall down because I can't eat off my floor. My home is a home, not an art museum. And since your child is a child, it's doubly important that you relax about it. She's a good kid overall, so why not let her be who she is?
Your plan is cruel and invasive, not to mention controlling.
Quote:
Originally Posted by anifani821
You are waaaaay too uptight about "messiness." And imposing a "minimalist" environment on a child who obviously NEEDS to be surrounded by her "things" is outrageous, mean-spirited, cruel and selfish.
This is just one of the many reasons I'm terrified of having kids. In what world is wanting your kids to clean their rooms cruel, mean-spirited, selfish, or any of these other negative adjectives? It's amazing to me how hostile some people get about other peoples' parenting.
Look, OP could probably lighten up a little. Also, if you do all that cleanup yourself the child will never learn to clean up after itself. What would I do? I'd ask for clean up, expect a reasonable job (not perfect), or enforce some sort of consequence. If that's cruel, invasive, selfish, or outrageous then sue me.
As a famous Norwegian princess once said, "let it go, let it go..." Bigger battles to fight. As long as there is no food involved, IMO, it's not worth.
I addressed it by keeping their bedroom doors shut. As long as they didn't keep food in their rooms, I really didn't care how messy they were. Sooner or later they grow up, go to college, and get roommates that open their eyes to just how unpleasant living with a slob can be.
I think your involvement is too much. Go through her cache? Why? Insist she keep the mess confined to her room. If she leaves things around the rest of the house, either open the door and toss them in, or confiscate those items. It may very well be a power struggle, so refuse to engage in it.
BTW, I volunteer at a charity that has become a dumping ground for parental discipline. Everything comes to us in massive trash bags, and we have to go through it to see if there's anything worth selling. Trash is trash, and since we have to budget for a dumpster, those donations cost us money.
This is also my strategy. Two of my three kids are relatively neat. The neater ones don't make their beds but they aren't really slobs. They never kept clothes on the floor or piles of stuff laying around. When I ask them to straighten up their room they can usually do it in half an hour.
The sloppy one is my middle son. I solved the problem by making him keep his mess in his room and closing the door. I often took stuff and dumped it on his bed. As long as there was no food mess in his room I just let him do his thing. It's not the hill I would choose to die on with my kids. My son is sloppy but he is a good kid. No drugs, no alcohol, no pregnant girlfriends, no car accidents. He gets good grades and most importantly he is just a good kid. So I will suffer a month of sloppiness while he is home.
Yes, there is another way you can handle it: Let it go.
You will NEVER look back on these years and think, "Gee, I wish my daughter had kept her room cleaner." You won't. She'll move out in a few very short years and you'll yearn for the days your sweet, well-behaved 11-year-old was in the house. You'll wish you hugged more and nagged less, but you'll never wish she'd been neater.
I have a feeling that this isn't the only thing you try and control and I do think you probably have a power struggle on your hands. Why don't you let her win this one? You can have some rules like "no food in your room" and "keep your stuff in your room and not on the couch," but let her be in charge of her own space. Like others have said, just shut the door.
I say this as the mother of a very messy 16-year-old daughter. I wish her room were cleaner and more organized, but I tell myself that it's her room and not mine. When she moves out, I'll be able to clean it up and get it how I want it in a matter of a couple of days. Until then, it's simply not worth fighting about.
If you bag up her stuff and give it away, all you'll be doing is pi$$ing her off and alienating her. You won't be teaching anything other than you're the big bad adult and she's the powerless kid.
This is true. When your daughter goes to college her room will stay neat. I am happy to have my son back from college (and the other one comes home next week). I can live with messy rooms.
This is just one of the many reasons I'm terrified of having kids. In what world is wanting your kids to clean their rooms cruel, mean-spirited, selfish, or any of these other negative adjectives? It's amazing to me how hostile some people get about other peoples' parenting.
Look, OP could probably lighten up a little. Also, if you do all that cleanup yourself the child will never learn to clean up after itself. What would I do? I'd ask for clean up, expect a reasonable job (not perfect), or enforce some sort of consequence. If that's cruel, invasive, selfish, or outrageous then sue me.
You have missed the point completely. Throwing away her daughters possessions because she's not a neat freak minimalist like her mother is all those things and a few more.
I spent half my childhood grounded due to a messy bedroom and my father did once throw out everything I owned...it was a jerk move then...it's a jerk move now. Needless to say I don't think highly of my father to this day. But guess what ? My house is well kept now and I certainly am not a horder.
A clean bedroom is not hill to die on especially if the kid is doing great otherwise. My daughter also had a messy room...you close the door. Drove hubby a bit bonkers because he is naturally neat...but he lived. Guess what? Her first apartment at college is remarkably tidy.
I have a daughter - soon to turn 11 - good student, well-behaved with one rather huge exception which is that she is disorganized and horrifically messy. I, as her mother, have been addressing her issues for many years to no avail. I've tried what I believe to be all strategies/consequences. Over and over. Today, I feel done.
I often go thru her cache, weed through it all getting rid of stuff in hopes of keeping it more 'manageable' for her. I do not expect perfection from her, simply honest effort which she rarely produces. I am in the process of accepting that this is her 'nature', but in light of the fact that we share a home and I can not accommodate her issues any longer, my intention is to enforce a minimalist lifestyle upon her by simply bagging up practically everything she posseses today and donating it to charity. With both Christmas and her birthday around the corner, I dread the influx of new items into the home and think immediate reduction is the way to go in order to preserve my sanity.
Is there another way I can handle this - aside from trying to teach her organizational methods and giving consequences for noncompliance - which I am officially giving up on doing, as nothing works? If I have developed any insight (a guess), it is that this must be a power struggle - why else would she defy all of my requests to keep her messes contained and somewhat orderly? Or is my other guess correct - it is just her nature to be this way? How have others here addressed this with their own children after years of trying to fix it? Thanks.
So aside from being messy, your daughter is well behaved, and a good student? I would pick my battles. You sound very uptight...If it were my child (I don't have any) I would be focusing on the fact that she is a good kid and good at school.. Because in the end... being a good person with a good education is all that matters.
With both Christmas and her birthday around the corner, I dread the influx of new items into the home and think immediate reduction is the way to go in order to preserve my sanity.
WOW... its the holidays and your worried about a messy room? take time to relax and be thankful
that you have a good kid.
Seriously this is the worst problem you have with her? You should thank your lucky stars and close her door.
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