Do you let your children have their rooms how they like?

[MincePieFlavouredVoidka]

DH and I have been discussing DS1's (10) room. I am quite happy to let him have it neat or messy, what he wants on the walls etc. DH thinks he should be made to tidy it. I see it as 'his' space. As long as he follows the three rules we have in place (which he does) I dont mind.

I have to say that I think my feeling on this come from my own Mum who was the total opposite of me. When we were children she would quite often go off in massive violent rages if our bedrooms were not tidied to her satisfaction. Throwing things away and shouting and screaming. I suppose this has made me more laid back.

Personally your oh is right I sure you don't enjoy cleaning up after your oh so why train your son to be messy so some poor cow has the same job as you when he's married

I dont clean up after my DH.

RonnieBirtles don't brother make a rule that he gets one hour too tidy his room up then let him know anything thats not away gets put in the bin trust me you will do it once and he will be like a maid at downton Abby

His room isnt ridiculously messy, I would say 6/10 on the tidiness scale. Its mainly his millions of books everywhere!

MincePieFlavouredVoidka exactly he cleans up after him self as should your son.

Have no clue I can not get upstairs to ds1 and ds2 shared bedroom , clothiers seem to come down the rest may fester

Dd and ds3 ruled are no food and dirty washing in basket

Though they are pretty good about clearing tots away as if I run over them then there only fit fOr the bin

We have a rule that dd's room has to be tidied to the extent that it can be hoovered thoroughly once a week - which effectively means a pretty full tidy given that she plays with playmobil all over the floor.

Given the amount of time the cat spends in there & her hunting tendencies (cat not dd) the worm egg/flea possibilities are too high to leave dd to her own devices completely

Sorry every ones different I guess I like a clean and tidy hime and just think people who don't pick after themselves are a little lazy

I mean to throw something on the floor when the shelf is about 10 cm away is a bit off

Also I like to teach my child about respecting his things especially at 11 he's not the one who pays for it all

Just me though

ILoveJugeJudy How old is your daughter?

Yep I do Dd's 9 & 7 can have their rooms how they like, do long as its not dirty or smelly. I vacuum once a week & they've got to move things off the floor for that.

Toys aren't allowed in bedrooms tho, we have a designated toy room.

I have the provisio that I am not expected to know where their things are, as if they lose personal items in their rooms it's got nothing to do with me.

My youngest is very messy & eldest freaky tidy.

My youngest occasionally has tidying sprees tho.

Communal spaces are kept the way I like them- because I am in charge (nominally). People's rooms are the waythey like them.

I rekon setting some boundaries is the way to go, then relaxed after that. For me, it'd be:

Clothes - dirty in the basket (not in basket=not washed) and ironed clothes awy (or stop ironing them if not able to be put away neatly)
Cutlery/Crockery brought down with them each morning (no food in room if this can't be followed), rubbish in bin
Books and DVDs - put away. Books as they are sacred and should be respected above all else and DVDs so they dont get scratched.

Anything else goes. Wouldnt bother me if the bed wasn't made dont make my own or posters/papers/magazines/make up everywhere. Their space.

Oh, and if it needed re-decorating, they could pretty much have free reign within budget

Ds are 13 c& 15. my parenting experiment with them backfired massively. i have no rules about their rooms. they can do with them what they like. i was hoping this would mould them into responsible, clean, tidy humans but i'm afraid it didn't work.

i still don't mind though. if they run out of clothes because every item is in a dirty heap then that is their prolem. they know where the washing machine is. if they put stuff in the basket i will wash it.

i do occasionally ask them to clear the decks a bit when it starts to spill out into the landing and they usually do do it.

i also don't mind about whatever posters/art on their walls. DD1 has painted hers all over and it looks pretty good.

and i don't nag about D2s weird asperger-esque things like never drawing back her curtains and having a particular towel on her floor at bedtime.

it's their space to do what they need to with.

I'm a bit ocd about the dcs bedrooms and did ds room in a digger/building site theme when he was 2, he's now 4.3 and has a few cars/toystory posters ruining to adapt his room as his tastes change.

Aslong as its neat and tidy I'm relaxed, so what if he wants his trainset set up, or to leave a jigsaw he's working on, he puts away everything he isn't using.

I won't comment on dds room which resembles a doll nursery/peppa pig shrine

Within reason.

9y DD's bedroom is her space. It is decorated to her taste and she loves being in her room. We don't hav posters up on the bedroom wall, but she does have pictures and a film strip border with chosen photographs, etc within it. However, it is kept tidy. This is helped by the fact that DD is naturally pretty tidy. But even if she wasn't, I would go in and tidy it.

Oh, and toys can be left out mid play - at the moment her Sylvanian Families are set up mid game. This is fine.

DS is 9. He can put up posters and drawings and rearrange his furniture.

However he has to keep it tidy so I can clean it. Every morning he has 'jobs' to do - pulling back the duvet to air the bed, opening the window, jammies in the wash, make sure his bin is empty.

He can leave out toys if he's in the middle of a game or an art project.

He's not allowed any food or drink in his room other than water.

I want him to learn how to look after himself.

Ooh a tricky one.

All three of mine were quite 'ocd' before teen years - now they are just filthy mingers really. I go in with a shovel, gloves and a bin bag every half term.

Even the one I deem to be 'clean' - well I oiked out 56 pair of socks (I'm not kidding) and I dont even want to think about the underpants he lost 3 years ago. Nor the volume of packed lunches that disappeared.

Before anyone cries "dirty, slovenly bitch" at me - he had a cabin bed against the wall so its only something you move when decorating. What was behind it was the stuff of FB photos

56 pair of socks. Still reeling from that. And the yogurts.

We are in the middle of decorating upstairs. It hasn't been an experience I wish to repeat.

i have one laundry basket which I expect them to put thier stuff in. In reality it never quite makes it that far.

They will be having their own laundry bins in their bedroom.

I do go in every day and fling the windows open because teenagers reek of musk and sweat and other bodily functions I dare not swell on. I also air the duvets over the bannisters and give them a quick squirt daily because even the fresly showered teenager can reek over night. I wash the duvets themselves every month to remove the smell of rotting corpse.

This is from bedrooms that dont have consoles, PCs or laptops, only a TV and are barely used for anything other than sleeping in.

Yup, I conclude, teenagers are indeed mingers.

my dd (10) can have her room how she wants. at the moment that means there is a strip of carpet visible where the door opens but that's about it. (shrugs) it's her room, not mine

she rarely has food up there but if she does then the plates come down into the kitchen the next time she comes down.

dirty clothes go in the washing basket.

apart from that, if she chooses to have her room like a pigsty then that is her choice.

I was messy child - well had a messy room

Thinking back, I didn't know how to stay tidy (ie tidy as you go), I didn't get encouraged that everything has a place so it became carnage. I remember feeling overwhelmed. Also I had quite low self esteem so didnt care a lot of the time. Ironically I did a lot of housework so know how to stay clean as tidy!

Now as an adult - I need things to have a place as it's easier to tidy, Ive got into habits of taking things down and giving places a clean as I go (eg clean the bathroom after having a shower) - this works better for me than tidying every Saturday for example.

So those with messy kids - maybe they need a bit of help to think differently about it.

I just close the door on it

DD is only 5 and gets to choose her decor - to a point . I won't have posters on walls or 'character' curtains/linen. Luckily she likes things tidy and puts one game away before the next as a rule so it's always OK in there. I don't work on Fridays so I clean it properly then, she does the daily tidy and makes her bed.

I honestly couldn't cope if it was really dirty or messy or ugly .

My daughter has to keep her room clean and tidy.

She however completely ignores this and her room is a festering pit of squalor. The door stays closed and I pretend it doesn't exist.