to expect a 12 year old to tidy his room

[prettybird]

And to be spitting mad that he a) refuses to do so and b) then complain that I do nothing around the house.

I told him his room was a pigsty - at which point he told me that I was a pig and did nothing around the house anyway.

I told him that "nothing" included doing all the washing, stacking and unstacking the dishwasher, nagging him to empty the recycling bin , all the evening meals (from scratch ), changing the bedlinen, 95% of the ironing (his dad occasionally has to iron his school trousers and jumper as they're not dry by Sunday night 'cos I've had to nag him to get the dirty washing into the washbasket ), act as a taxi driver for him to get to cycling and rugby training.... This at the same time as looking for a job (we've been living comfortably off redundancy money for a while) and helping dh as he also looks for work/tries to set up a business.

I told him that if his attitude was that he didn't need to do anything and that if he though I did "nothing", I would go "on strike" as far as doing things for him was concerned. He claimed he didn't need me to cook for him as he can cook now (after his Home Ec classes).

I then told him to get out before I said something I really regretted - and that if he was so good at cooking, I would leave out the chicken noodle soup that had been in the fridge and he could heat it up himself.

How can I get him to understand that with rights come responsibilities (he keeps on threatening to call Child Line)? He is an intelligent boy who is in his 1st year of secondary and to everyone else is a charming boy I know that's a common "complaint" with teenagers/proto-teenagers

The argument started with me trying to warn him that his dad was at the point of going to his room and scooping everything into black bags and that unless he did something about it, it was going to happen. He was warned in January that if it wasn't tidied properly by the end of March that dh was going to do this. I told him I was fed up of trying to help him by doing some tidying for him - but of going back into his room a couple of days it is worse than ever: clothes all over the floor, books, pens and toys all over the floor and surfaces, all the drawers wide open.

Help!

I'd be livid if he spoke to me like that.

Your time line was too long but you did give him til the end of the month. Remind him of the threat and if he doesn't change feel free to swoop in with the bin bags then.

In the meantime I would be revoking all priviledges such as lifts; pocket money etc til he apologises for his disgusting disrespectful and rude attitude towards you.

Mine only get to use the "privileges' (anything with a screen)in this house if their space are clean, and if they contribute to the running of the house, without being hassled, if I have to put energy into reminding them to do anything, then I don't have that energy to be a taxi, so no youth club, swimming, surfing, climbing, band practice, martial arts, sports training, ........................

mine like activities, they like having access to screen therapy, so they muck in, because they know if they don't life as they know stops, no warnings, they don't need any, I sat them down and explained why they need to be use to running a house, it's non negotiable, they know no different,

my middle son is the same age as yours, he cooks four times a week, as does everyone in this house, two dinners two lunches, they do the laundry, they clean the bathroom, kitchen, vacuum, chop wood, weed, what ever is going on, or needs doing.

if they don't do it properly they do it again, we have really busy lives, we (DH and I) haven't the time to compensate if they don't, so activities have to be dropped, as we can't drop work,

It takes one person four hours to clean this house, or it takes five people half an hour, when we come in (once or twice a day) everyone runs around for about ten minutes, all jobs done, then everyone is free to please themselves,

because everyone takes responsibility for the space, people tend to jobs as they appear, I haven't had to have words with anyone for years,

I tend to take the view my mother didn't give birth to me, for me to waste my life cleaning up after people who are perfectly able to clean up after themselves.

Anyone can opt out, but they have to explain to me why my life is less important than theirs, funnily enough no one has ever attempted that.

if you want privileges in this house you have to have had exemplary behaviour in the previous 24hr, it is no loss to me if they don't have screens or activities, and they know there is no chance of me/us not being consistent, so makes for an easy life.

We want him to tidy his room 'cos at the moment it is a) a health hazard (both tripping over things and dirty clothes left lying around and there is no way it can be cleaned and b) we do sometimes have to go into his room - either to find things he insists he can't find or to find the cats, which often sleep on the various items lying on the floor (and he then complains of cat hairs on everything) or to change his bedlinen.

We do also want to rationalise the furniture in his room so he doesn't overflow into other parts of the attic floor. He has three chest of drawers, two book cases (and another one on the landing), a desk (on the landing), no wardrobe (but a hat stand to hang clothes up on), a hamper full of toys, a sofabed as well as a cabin bed. It is not a small room but totally cluttered. Rollers and a track bike on the landing. Another hamper of toys in the spare bedroom.

Sorry - double posted. Trying to cook dinner at the same time, deal with a tearful boy and get ready for a PTC Meeting (as well as decide whether or not to take him to his Rollers session - too late now to tell the girl who takes it that he'll not be there).

Dh doesn't talk to me like that: no idea where he gets his attitude from.

Stop everyone taking crockery upstairs and bring the laundry basket downstairs and say to everyone that you will only wash what is in it.

A 12 yo is perfectly capable of understanding the above and changing his own bed linen.

My dd's room is a pit. She has until the end of the week to sort it out and then I've told her all clothes and anything else on the floor (phone and DS chargers etc) will be going in the bin. And anything she might not want me to see will be thoroughly looked at.

I will have to get my nagging head on and suffer the strops but she won't dare tell me I do nothing all day or she'd find herself living with her dad and his mother where they have no internet.

I agree that a three month deadline was/is too long. It wasn't me that set it - it was dh and I then had to support him.

Calm seems to have returned although ds has currently been banned from access to the iPad. We do already have the rule that if it's not in the wash basket (which is in our bedroom, downstairs from his room), it doesn't get washed. And I only wash at weekends. I'll start getting him to change his own bed linen.

I'm going to show dh this thread and then we'll have a family meeting about how we're going to share tasks going forward and to make sure that everyone is clear about Respect, Rights and Responsibilities in this household.