Anyone else got a bedroom dweller?

[niceguy2]

Hi all

I'd just like others opinion of if this is normal behaviour and she'll snap out of it or should I tackle it?

DD is now 15. Overall she's a good girl. Getting good grades at school (expected A/A*'s). No real discipline problems other than occasionally being late at school or throwing the odd strop at me for some petty reason.

The main problem is that she's constantly camping out in her bedroom. I mean literally from the moment she gets home, she'll be in there apart from brief appearance when I call her for dinner and maybe a couple of times a week she'll watch some TV in the lounge.

Her room is well.....digusting. She used to be such a tidy girl and I used to be so proud of how pristine she kept her room. But now there's clothes overflowing out of her cupboards, you can barely see her carpet. There's bags of rubbish recycling. If I ask her to tidy her room she grunts and ignores me. If I persist then she'll go off on one about how she's 15 you know....she knows!!!! I don't have to tell her...... but ofc nothing happens! lol

Conversation wise most of the time it's bare minimum really. Occasionally she'll open up about what she's doing or problems with friends etc.

I guess I just feel like she's living in the house but not really living WITH us if that makes sense?

Tell me this is normal and I'll get my beautiful daughter back one day????

[rainbowinthesky]

Ds is exactly the same (16) apart from he keeps his room pristine and always has done and is A/A* student so we cant really argue with him about these things.
I cant tell you yet whether you get back your beautiful child - maybe I could answer that in a year or so!

[usualsuspect]

She will eventually emerge , but teenagers need their own space and its perfectly normal . I just ignore messy rooms but my DS did have a mass clean up of his room yesterday

[mumeeee]

Completely normal. I have 3 DDs and they all did this in their teens. My youngest is 20 and although does spend some time with us she still spends a lot of time in het room and it's like a tip. She has some learning difficulties so is still at the teenage stage.

[OneHandFlapping]

No bedroom dwellers here unfotunately. I was one myself - very much in the mould of your DD, Niceguy, and I fully expected that as soon as mine turned 13, they would disappear into their rooms until they left home.

Sadly they are still taking up far too much space downstairs!

[MrsDmitriTippensKrushnic]

Not my DCs yet, but definitely me. I went into my bedroom at around 13ish and emerged (as a slightly more reasonable, less stroppy almost adult) at about 15/16. I even ate my meals up there, Mum would yell and leave my plate on the stairs and I'd creep down and get it. We do family meals so none of mine will ever get away with that...

onehandflapping I get to a point in the evening and then have to banish them to their rooms. I think I've just transferred my bedroom dwelling into adult living room dwelling and need a bit of 'alone time' once in a while

[OneHandFlapping]

Oh don't get me started on Alone Time Mrs Dmitri. DH works from home, and I NEVER get Alone Time. I am the only person in the entire house who has no space that is solely my own!

[ajandjjmum]

We never had that - largely because they never had tv's in their rooms. DS has one now - but he's away at uni and I quite enjoy curling up on his bed and watching it!

OneHandFlapping - I know the feeling - have been known to race round the house screaming 'I'm alone' with a big smile on my face, on the rare occasions no-one's working here, kids are away and Mum's out.

[niceguy2]

Thanks for that. It gives me hope!

So far today she's bimbled downstairs for breakfast. She briefly looked shocked when I tried to talk to her....now she's back in her room!

At least she's got an opitician's appointment later so she will be forced to interact with us for an hour or two!

[TheDogTheDogHesAtItAgain]

My oldest is 13 - an age by which I was living in my skunk pit bedroom most of the time. But she hasn't yet retreated into hers. If it meant that she took the guitar and the howling off somewhere else, I frequently wish that she would. Her bedroom is still a rubbish tip, however. She seems to have managed that just by sleeping and doing her homework in it.

[mumblechum1]

Does she see her friends in the holidays, Niceguy?

DS spent most of the Xmas holidays holed up in his room except for going for a daily run, but announced last night that he's going to do stuff this week. He will not, however, text anyone, he'll just assume that they'll get in touch.

[badtasteflump]

Another bedroom dweller here - although his TV broke over the weekend so he's now having to put himself through the trauma of shuffling through to the conservatory in the mornings so he can get on Xbox live to 'lol' 'rofl' etc with his friends. Poor lamb.

[TheScarlettPimpernel]

I was one. I loved it. My room was a little cave where I could start to work out who I was and what I wanted in life. I'd sit for hours drawing or playing the guitar or reading and hated having to leave it

I was a rather pallid, overweight teenager but grew up to have lots of accomplishments and be perfectly sociable

I sometimes still dream of having my own room that no-one would ever enter

[homeaway]

Yep sounds like a normal teenager to me!

[TheScarlettPimpernel]

PS I was also unspeakably disgusting. My then boyfriend (and now DH) swears blind that once, when retrieving a furry mug from under my bed, we discovered a new species of maggoty caterpillar

[mumblechum1]

Scarlett, at least you must have left your room enough to get a boyfriend!

[TheScarlettPimpernel]

Yes, that is true...but only ever to go to chapel though

[niceguy2]

@Mumble.

She normally sees them once. She's got two best mates whom she hangs out with but she's not got a very wide social circle. It seems they have cliques at school and it's hard to break out.

She did mention she may have a sleepover at one of her best friends later this week which is good. I wish she'd go out more tbh but then I'd probably be moaning if she did! lol

[purplecupcake]

DD's 17 and 16 , both been through the bedroom phase.. They share a bedroom, one half is spotless the other half like a pig sty. Both used to eat up there too.. they did have friends, friends come and would also vanish into the bedroom!

Now 17 year old found a boyfriend, i think shes now moved into his bedroom cos i dont see her that often, 16 year old still spends alot of time in bedroom if not glued infront of xbox

[ThePathanKhansWitch]

DD is 4, am i being unreasonable to be on a count down until the day she takes to her room?so my ears stop bleeding .

[ThePathanKhansWitch]

Strike fail! .

[usualsuspect]

Lots of my DSs mates spend a lot of time in his bedroom , so hes not alone up there.

They emerge now and again blinking into the light to make cups of tea and leave the dirty cups up there

[mumblechum1]

Same here. DS's best friend practically lives here, he calls me Number Two Mum

[SecretSquirrels]

Yes but I do blame myself to some extent. Until he was 15 there was no TV in DS1s room . At the start of Y10 we got him a desk and computer/t.v for his room and he does all his watching YouTube school work there as well as watching tv.
DS2 is 13 and uses the family computer/tv.

[MrsDmitriTippensKrushnic]

I think the TV's a bit of a red herring tbh. They do it anyway. I didn't have a TV in my room until I was in my late teens and bought my own - I drew, wrote, read, daydreamed (about 80% of the time) and listened to lots of music instead.