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Getting Your Children to Tidy Their Rooms

By: Dr. Noel Swanson.

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:

Before you begin this exercise, make sure you have provided enough space where all the stuff can go. If the cupboards or drawers are full and overflowing, you can’t expect them to put their stuff in them. You will have to reorganize the storage space or even install some additional shelves, boxes under the bed, or chests of drawers to accommodate all the things that are precious to your child.

Always, make more room than is required today, because the stuff will go on increasing and the problem will remain unsolved if there is not sufficient space. Moreover, there should be enough space to let the child take out what he wants without having to empty the whole drawer.

Once you have done your part of the job, and provided enough storage space, explain your method of tidying the room, and ask for suggestions from your child. Every child is different. Some children are very neat and tidy by nature, but the majority of them are not. And, children have their own idea of tidiness, which may not coincide with yours. You can’t expect them to keep their room spotless every single minute of every day. They have to play with their things, after all. Just set some rules about a reasonable standard of tidiness, and make sure you take their views on it. Also, decide how often that should be achieved.

Remember, your goal should be to teach your children how to responsibly look after their belongings; it should not be to showcase a spic and span room to show off to others. If you are taking up this exercise only because the untidiness gets on your nerves, then stop and think again. This will not help you or your child. Set your emotions aside and focus on teaching a good habit to your child. Therefore, you will have to be patient and live with an untidy room at times.

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.

Once you and your child agree on the general framework of the contract, the next thing is what to do if they do, or don't, achieve that?

The focus should, primarily, be on rewards - eg earned privileges 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.

Do this a couple of times and most children will get the message and tidy up before you get there with the black bag!

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://www.simplepetcare.com/pet-articles

Dr. Noel Swanson's website provides free expert parenting tips and advice - just sign up for his newsletter and get a free chapter of his book, The GOOD CHILD Guide. You can also meet with other parents on a parenting forum.
This article is available as a unique content article with free reprint rights.

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