Jul 24 2008
Getting your child to clean their room, impossible. Right? Wrong!
If it has gotten that bad, the sheer magnitude of the task may be too great for any child year to feel it is manageable….some suggestions.
The 5 minute rule…
An egg timer comes in handy here. For five minutes you are going to play a game. Start in a different part of the house, like the living room and for the next five minutes play the make it nice or clean it up or everything in its place game. I like the everything in its place and you can set it up so that they get it. Putting clothes away in the proper drawers can also be a good exercise. The game orientation makes it fun and you can initiate a reward system based on how many things are put away. You may find them coming to you with numbers of things put away so they can get their reward sooner.
The point is to break it up into managable blocks of time and make it fun. Being told your room is a pigstye and letting it continue to mount only adds stress. Telling any child to do anything can initiate a power struggle. You want to avoid that at all costs. Rewards can be 30 minutes of tv time after 5 minutes of completing put it away time or being able to stay up an extra 15 minutes at night if the 5 minutes were utilized.
Let them pick the rewards and the activity. If it is the living room, then the kitchen, then the hallway, then the bathroom, then..everything but the bedroom, but let them initiate the cleaning of their room. When they choose to a clean room let them know that it is already clean and won’t count as their 5 minutes. They will end up in their room and you will also have a helper for other things in the rest of the house.
Consider helping them clean their room for the 5 minutes at a reduced point rate if it is really dirty. This way they won’t feel so overwhelmed.
Provide plenty or organization tools, take them with you to the store to pick out colored bins to put toys in and in helping you make picture labels for drawers and bins. They can draw a car for a bin that holds only cars and a shirt for a drawer that has only shirts….or take pictures that can be taped to the drawer or bin of the organized contents so they can be reminded of the standard of which things need to be organized…clothes folded…ect…
Make it a daily habit…before bed. before dinner, or before school ect…
Once you get everything organized it can become an after activity routine, to be done before going on to the next project or activity….
Mind you this is not a perfect world. You will always have struggles, but these suggestions can help to make the transition from unorganized child to a child that is at least motivated to want to help to clean up the mess.
Autism or not, getting your child(ren) to clean their room is a challenge at best, providing inperation for a job well done can help initiate a cleaning routine that will last throughout a lifetime.
GOOD LUCK! Let me know how it goes!
This is a constant struggle at our house.
I have an ADHD 12 year old who doesn’t really mind having to clean his room but just forgets he’s doing it and moves on to something else! But my 8 year old girl DESPISES anything that resembles work or responsibility and screams and has tantrums.
I adopted them both 5 years ago so have other issues besides just cleaning the room at work her so I am always excited to hear new ways of dealing with the challenge and getting them motivated.
So thanks!
I had three sisters and our idea of cleaning our room was to stuff everything in the closet, drawers and under the beds! My mother used to go into our room when we were at school and pull everything out into a piles atop our beds and in the middle of the room and we were not allowed to come out until it was done. I used to hide under the bed! Hey, since there was nothing else under it I could fit!
Let me know how it works out for you. Adoption is a wonderful thing, albeit unique with the challenges, it can be very rewarding.
One of my best friends was adopted and had some contact with her natural father. She says that she went through a period of time when she rebelled against her adopted parents too. Over time as she grew to understand the importaince of adoption she was able to see the true magnitute of what they had given her.
A happy childhood, a family that loves her, and opportunitites in life that she would not have gotten otherwise. It comes with time and maturity she says, but it does come.
Hugs to you!