Child Behavior: How To Get Your Children to Tidy Their Rooms!

By Dr. Noel Swanson. in Children on March 24th, 2008

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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 solved the storage problem, it is time to establish a routine and appropriate expectations. Every child is different. Some, amazingly, seem to be born with the “tidy gene”. Most are not. Also, their definition of tidiness may be very different from yours. Don’t expect them to keep their room spotless every single minute of every day. Instead, try to establish, preferably by negotiation, what a reasonable standard of tidiness is, and how often that should be achieved.

Remember, your goal should be to teach your children how to responsibly look after their belongings. That their untidiness upsets you is your problem. You will have to allow them to fail at times and face the consequences of that. In other words, you may have to put up with their untidiness for a bit longer.

So, once you have established reasonably expectations - e.g., that they put things away before bed, or once a week they do a big tidy-up, then it is time to draw up some kind of contract.

What this says, in very simple terms, is what are the consequences for success and failure? For example, if the agreement is that they will do a big clean up before lunchtime on Saturday, what happens if they do, or don’t, achieve that?

Again, the focus should be on rewards not punishments. Give them earned privileges based on achieving the goal. You may want to combine them with a chart system connected to other chores.

In addition you can also use some punishments for failure, but the must be logical consequences. I.e, the punishment should fit the crime. One example of this is to use the “black bag” technique. Quite simply this states that anything still lying on the floor at 1pm on Saturday gets picked up (by parents) and put into a big black bag which is then thrown into the attic, basement or garage for a week. They can have it back if, next Saturday, the tidy goal is achieved. If not, then that week’s black bag collection is also thrown into the basement. This continues until either they run out of toys or they do some tidying up!

You can achieve tremendous success in teaching your child to tidy up his room only if you can keep a firm check on your emotions. Make sure you don’t shout and scream. As always, you can succeed by being calm but firm. Also, give full freedom to your children to do it their way. You must go up to the room at the appointed time to check.

You will need to do it only a couple of times because if you mean business, most children will hate the sight of the black bag and tidy up the room before they have to set eyes on it again.

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.

About the Author:

More information on how to solve children’s behavioral problems can be found on Dr. Noel Swanson’s website, which is all about solving Child Behavior Problems. Sign up for his FREE newsletter and 1 hour audio too.