Teenager and mess

[admylin]

This is about my niece. She will officially be a teenager in a few weeks but has been behaving like one for a couple of years!

The biggest row in my sister's house is about the state of her dd's room. It is quite a mess because her dd tends to try on a lot of clothes before she decides what to wear and just drops the rest on the floor, same when she comes in to change from school, it all just gets dropped. You can't see the carpet some days. This results in frequent fights and TV being banned until it's tidy, bad moods all round etc.

My advice has been to let her have the room as she wants it but if she runs out of clean washing because it's all on the floor then it's her bad luck. How else would you deal with it?

[sugarplumfairy]

We have a "Saturday" pile in our teenagers bedrooms. All the clothes have to be in a neatish pile on the floor and then on Saturdays has to be cleared into dirty or clean and put away accordingly.

At least we don't have to nag all the time and once a week the room is tidied, just shut the door the rest of the time!

[admylin]

That's a good idea, once a week tidy floor. Trouble is 1 day later it's a tip again, can you really stay calm by just closing the door?

Actually the girls room is on a different floor of the house so no one actually has to walk past it but it still makes my sister mad.

[sugarplumfairy]

Yes it lasts about one day in our house, my 2 are DD16 and DS12, one room is at the top of the house, the other next to ours but I just close the door. Make them draw curtains/blinds back so at least it's not too dreary.

This is how we deal with it, may not be upto someone else's standards! Rest of house is very tidy/minimalist, so maybe my teenagers need to slob out in their rooms.

I didn't think it was worth a battle over, as they get older there are more important things you may have to battle over like going out, doing homework, drinking etc.

Hope this helps