take dd's bedroom away from her?

[midnightmemories]

I have two dd's (13 & 8). Older DD has large bedroom and younger one is in the box room. Older DD is very untidy and I am fed up with how untidy she is. I gave up trying to hoover in there as floor is always covered with clothes etc. She now has to hoover it so it doesn't get done properly.

I have been threatening to make her switch rooms with her younger DD who I know would keep it tidy. She thinks that is very unfair, she will tidy it for a few days then we are back to square one.

Growing up I had three sisters. The oldest two had their own bedrooms. I shared with the youngest who was extremely untidy and I hated it. My older sisters were also untidy but my parents would never let me swap with either of them.

IABU to make DD move out of her large bedroom so the youngest can have it? It is unfair?

Not sure what to do. Oldest DD probably wouldn't forgive me though!

my mum did this to me! it hasnt made me any tidier in the long run (im still desperately untidy) but there was less mess because there was less space, and i didnt feel it was unfair - littler kids need more floor space than teenagers anyway because they're on the floor to play in a way teens aren't.

I'm of the 'shut the door' persuasion. Her room, her mess. DD was much the same at that age, I exhausted and stressed myself loading things into bin bags, confiscating things. It just wasn't worth the battle.

We came to a truce, she'd hoover and strip her bed once a week and I'd keep out and leave her to it. Oh, and the door needed to be kept shut.

My DD2 is incredibly messy. I stage a room intervention every couple of weeks and we muck it out together. To try and stop it getting too bad I have rules about no food in the room and no towels left in the room, I also insist every scrap of washing is removed from the room on a Friday.
What helps the most is that's he has regular sleepovers. She is quite happy to tidy up if a mate is coming round.

YABVU - you can't swap the younger sibling around to punish/reward the older one. What if older DD keeps the box room spotless? She'll expect to be able to have "her" room back, and that's not fair on the younger one and will just cause loads of resentment.

I would say it's her room, her mess. If she wants to live in a pit, she's old enough to choose that. I think every kid/teenager goes through a stage where their room is a pigsty. I know I did and my mum got so fed up hassling me about it that she just left it. By sixteen I was tidying it up voluntarily, and now, at 25, I hate mess and tidy everyday.

It will get better!

I've always swapped my 3 around depending who has the need for the bigger bedrooms. I have 3 sons and found as they got older toys and gadgets got smaller and they didn't need as much room compared with when they were younger. I do think houses with two big double bedrooms and a much smaller third bedroom can be tricky to arrange.

Younger DD has quite a few toys that she plays with including a big dolls house which we have to be keep in the conservatory. These could go in her bedroom so would free up space downstairs.

Older DD leaves wet towels on her floor which I am constantly telling her to pick up. I have tried most things so will resort to going in there and clearing everything out that's lying around into bin bags and see if that works.

I understand your logic that your younger daughter would keep the bedroom in a better condition but I think forcing them to switch will ultimately breed sibling rivalry and resentment. Also it makes sense for the older daughter to have a bigger room because she will probably have more possessions and spend more time there. At some point she will need a quiet space to study for her exams so she should have a bedroom big enough for a bookcase and desk.

I got to the just shut the door stage. It didn't help. Four bloody years we lived with a room such a mess that it used to drive me crazy even though the door was firmly closed.
It was younger DC. She'd always had a smaller room, when we moved here we knew it wouldn't be all that long before older DCs moved out, so we let her have first pick of the rooms. She didn't treat it with any respect at all.

If it were now I'd go and purchase some storage boxes, all the same and number them. Put all the discarded stuff into the boxes and keep a master list according to the numbers. Put boxes in your own room if necessary, but somewhere she can't have easy access. Exclude school uniform and possibly underwear and also remove all makeup and nailvarnish and media devices, these should be made available at your discretion.
When she wanted anything she'd have to request it and she'd get nothing unless the room was tidy enough.

It's a lot of work, but there's no magic answer.

Having the younger child in the bigger bedroom makes more sense anyway. Young children have lots of toys and they are bigger and take up more space than most of the stuff teens have.

I don't think that her having a smaller room with make her keep it tidier but I would swap them just on the basis of younger child needing more room for their stuff and having more room to play.

My eldest moved from the biggest room into the smallest room as he got rid of all his toys and now just has laptop, xbox, guitar etc. he even got rid of his wardrobe to make it feel bigger (folds all his clothes in drawers!) As a sweetener I decorated it for him, got a cool new bed and some bedding he liked.

Dd is the youngest and had the biggest room for all her plastic tat, but she also made such a mess that after a couple of years I decided to move her to the middle room and ds2 has now got the biggest one!

I think it's good for them all to have a turn with the biggest room, they all have a shift around, get rid of some stuff and appreciate what they have a bit more.

Don't treat it as a punishment, more as a chance to throw out her old stuff and get a nice new room. Maybe you could offer her a tv or something if she accepts that smaller room with good grace.

Fwiw, dd still makes a mess in the smaller room, but it's not as bad an quicker to tidy up!

I was a very untidy child / teenager and now as an adult I am still very untidy. I have systems which work really well keeping things that have to be tidy organised (for example I have every single payslip I have ever been given since I started worked beautifully filed in chronological order) but for things that don't fit into my system I really struggle (sticking with my payslip example back in 2011 something went wrong with my pay so as well as the normal payslip that was posted to me I was given an amendment one at work. I have recently found this on the window sill I our bathroom as it didn't fit in with my strict get payslip in post, open payslip, check payslip, file payslip without putting it down system. Instead it hung around on my desk for a while, got shoved in a drawer, finally got brought home, sat in my bag for a while and somehow ended up in the bathroom.)

The thing is that is part of my personality. I am alscleverly very good at maths. I understand that for a tidy person you can't understand why I can't be tidy. People always say things like "it's easy - you just have to put a bit of effort in." The thing is - I can work out what 551 * 37 is in my head. It is easy - I just have to put a bit of effort in.

Punishing someone like me for not being tidy is no more logical than punishing you for not coming up with 20387.

I'm fortunate that we were able to convert 2 small rooms into a bigger room so our younger DD didn't have to have a tiny roo. Compared to her sister. The younger DD is definitely the tidier one and although she makes mess she will then blitz her room and it gets to being perfect.

DD1 is the messiest person I have ever known, you can't open the door to her room, she the carpet or the bed, even when she was at home for 10 weeks last summer after her GCSEs it never got that much better. After years of trying to get her to conform I have now decided that As she is an excellent A grade student it is her space and I just shut the door and ignore the problem, I'll tidy it when she goes to Uni.
Would I have made the DC swap rooms, probably not unless I had a really good and valid reason for doing it and certainly not as a punishment.
When I grew up we moved house when I was 14 and my sister 12 up until then we had shared a room, my sister was given 1st choice of bedroom, my parents decided this was fair as being the oldest I had got to make lots of decisions in the past. She chose the one I would have probably chosen myself but I was more than happy with my room, my DB was only young so he got the small room, he moved into my room the minute I left home, I'm not even sure my mum had time to change the sheets :)

Would a cabin bed or high-sleeper help to make extra room in the box room for your DD2?

not read all the answers but as the mom to a 13 year old your on the right track (in my opinion) my daughter had the bigger room and made a massive mess so i switched her with her brother now she cant make a mess because she wont be able to get to her clothes make up and dolls house so its still a little messy but from what it was its fantastic! i can even see the carpet and the bed!!

and now my sons room is the one in the mess but you cant have everything!

Do it.

I would do it because the younger one has more larger stuff.

I also think it's unfair if one dc always has the large room. One idea that I've heard work fantastically is a rota swap every 6-12 months as they have to sort out their stuff and have a clear out

Your older dd sounds like my dd1. She is a nightmare with her room.
She was the eldest so always had the larger room. By the age of 10 it was a pig sty. She has no respect for her stuff and would never put things away. I cleaned it every week for her I changed her bed I picked up dirty and wet clothes/towels off the floor.
Well she is 17 and she is still an untidy little mare. We moved recently so she has to have a smaller room(dd2 and 3 share a larger room which she sulked over not getting) and it is still really messy. DH on several occasions has gone in with bin bags and blitzed the room.
She is in charge of her room now but she is banned from eating up there and I ask for dirty clothes every two days to help her keep it up to a standard.
To be fair we are waiting for her to go to Uni then we can clear it and have a functional clean non-smelly guest room

Don't change the rooms over, it won't help. Shock her into cleaning it or get DH to blitz it, the are more ruthless then mums

Has DD1 had the big room for the last 13 years??? Isn't it time DD2 had it.

I don't get why the eldest child always get the biggest room. it seems very unfair.