To chuck her stuff in the bin?

[biggirlknickers]

DD, 11, keeps her bedroom in a complete mess. I have tried incentives - 6 weeks ago I offered a cinema trip if she tidied it up but she still hasn’t done it. She says she doesn’t know where to start and I need to help her but I really don’t see why I should - I manage to single-handedly keep the whole of the rest of the house clean and tidy!

She is just being lazy. She spends all her time watching tv and playing games on her phone (another issue I need to deal with - any suggestions welcomed). She is very loving and fun to be with but is also extremely argumentative when challenged on her habits and I must admit, I actively avoid situations which spark her attitude because I hate confrontation and I’m full of parental guilt (a whole other thread) and blame myself for everything.

I would ignore the bedroom but for two reasons - 1:, the room is very near the front door so is visible to any visitors, and 2:, it is shared with her sister so she has to live with it too which isn’t fair on her.

I have a rare day off today and I’m thinking of going in there with bin bags and literally throwing away everything from the floor.

I also need advice on how to move forward with this - re tidying and screen time.

I feel like a really pathetic parent reading all this back!

Without any doubt at all you should help her tidy her room. Teaching these skills is part of being a parent. And you owe it to her sister too to make the room habitable. 11 is still quite young. Not everyone finds tidying easy.

You would be entirely unreasonable to throw her things away. That would create huge resentment. More so I taking away her phone I would have thought.

Take phone away and give it back to her when her room is tidy. Done.

I was a very messy untidy child/teenager and it caused rows with my mother. Eventually, like your daughter, my room became so untidy i didn't know where to start. I remember looking under the bed and finding all my old toys and art stuff tangled up in knitting wool and couldn't see a way to sort it all out. My mother got a friend of hers who was far more patient and very organised in her own home to visit and help me out. We worked together until it was done and then I managed to keep it nice, assisted by the fact that by then I was often having friends visit and I needed a clean tidy room for them too. Might this idea work for you?

If she shares a room are you absolutely sure it's just the 11 yo making the mess too?

Wow, considering how many adults get overwhelmed with mess and not knowing where to start or how to address it, it's cruel to think that somehow a child "just knows".

Everyone who is saying "just take her phone away! Does that make me a meanie? giggle", you're not being cute or funny, you're ignoring a child asking for help learning a skill they don't know.

If they asked you to help teach them to cook, would you say "Just let them go hungry! Does that make me a meanie?"

She has asked for your help.... Why can't you help her? My dd1 room got like this, similar age. She became so overwhelmed nd didn't know where to start. I was advised to break it down for her into smaller steps such as; step 1 collect all the dirty clothes, step 2 gather all the dirty pots and put on kitchen etc. Once she has a new clean slate give her a small list of daily things to do, such as open curtains, make bed, put dirty clothes in laundry basket. It might seem to be not encouraging independence but sometimes simple steps are needed in the first instance.

My friend has a 12 year old like this. Her room is a complete mess all the time, so is her playroom. She did this about a year ago and triumphantly posted pictures on FB of 4 big bags of stuff being taken away by the bin lorry. Apart from the sheer waste of good stuff going to landfill, I thought this was a terrible thing to do to a kid. They were her possessions. You can’t just throw them away.

I’ve since seen her do this twice more on FB and she still has regular posts about how messy her room is. Their relationship is also really strained now, she doesn’t trust her mum.

Help her, show her, don’t do it for her, and once tidy, put rules in place about how often she needs to tidy her room. You seem more worried about visitors seeing the mess than helping your daughter have good habits.

my dd is similar and has refused to tidy up her room so at the moment most her stuff is in bags and boxes and I'm giving her 1 box a day to sort out until its all sorted. I need to know what to do with 200+ teddies she wants to keep them all ive asked her to sort special ones to keep then I got told there all special surely an 11 year old don't need that many teddies.

I think @quincejamplease called this one. She needs management strategies and the kind of help you are seeking here.

I wonder, how would she feel about having a friend over to buddy her through it. You could male a list of what needs to be done and the friend could keep her company through the process and maybe help a bit and when it was done you could order them pizza or something as a reward,

You have to think....what kind of relationship do I want with her, going forward? Do I want her terns to be full of conflict and arguments? If so, go ahead with the throwing everything away option.

If you want a good relationship, then help her. Do it together.have a laugh while you do it.
Shes only 11 fgs.
I am an adult and I struggle to keep on top of mess.

Change the wifi password on your router and stick up a sign saying the password will only be released when the room is tidy.

My dad cleared my bedroom in black bin liners when I was 11 because I couldn't keep it tidy. Everything went in the spare room door locked. Then just like @deaddoorpost he gave me a bag at a time to sort, and then 2 days to make sure the stuff I'd got back stayed tidy. It sort of worked, I'm a naturally untidy person.
My mum sideways said I'll keep a tidy house when I grew up because I'd hate the mess. She was sort of right, downstairs sparkles, upstairs except the bathroom is in need of a good vaccum.

My mother would do that. Thing is, she was a hoarder, so thought I'd be bothered by bin bags of shit stuff being thrown out of my room that I never wanted in the first place.

Ok, so having got one messy and one much tidier teenager I would firstly get the phone removed. I am not sure a 11 year old should have all day access to a phone anyway but tell her its so that you can help her tidy her room especially as its shared by her sister too. She can get it back afterwards.

Then spend 30 mins or so making a start. She does the manual work and you suggest how it is done.

Do NOT let her keep her phone. I have a bit of an issue about phone anyway. We are obsessed with them, especially the young. Look at the next tube or bus journey you make. The majority of people are looking at their phones, what on earth are they looking at? I have been out with friends and when someone's phone bleeps there is an immediate jump to see what it is (and its normally some inane piece of info!!)

Be the parent who helps their children prepare for life.

My mum used to pick everything up and put it on my bed. The idea was that I then had to tidy before I could get in to bed. To be fair it usually worked, although it was never hideously messy in the first place really. It didn't work with my brother though, he would just push it all back on to the floor. He did eventually end up with his stuff in bin bags... He's still messy as an adult.

It's obviously got to the point where it's overwhelming if she doesn't know where to start. I feel like that when the housework gets on top of me. Maybe offer to help her- just be there to guide her rather than doing any of it for her. Remind her along the way that if she didn't let it get so bad in the first place, it wouldn't be an issue. And that if she does choose to let it get in a state again, she's on her own, as you've now shown her exactly what she needs to do to sort it.

I removed everything from my duaghter's room and piled it in the corridor. Then gave her a keep one thing bin ten rule. She had stored up years of crap from being youngest of a number of siblings, having tonnes of things passed down and all her own gifts. Just shed loads of stuff, mostly tat. It was impossible to keep tidy. Worked a treat. Her room is not tidy still (she's dyslexic and finds organising a challenge) but is easily tidied, whcih I expect her to do regularly (a least every weekend). So copse a strategy you feel happy with an be the adult, implement it.
And re phones, remove it from her until job done. Simple as 🤷‍♀️ it's not a human right you know! 🤣

I agree with other posters she needs help to break it down into manageable tasks. The size of the job is so overwhelming it can be paralyzing.

While she is at school, shove everything into binbags and put the bin bags in the attic/under your bed/behind the sofa - while you are doing this do keep an eye out for genuinely indispensable things she can't live without for a few weeks.

Make sure she has sufficient storage space in her room.

Talk to her about sensible ways to hang on to things that have emotional value but can no longer be used - e.g. she can make a scrap book or other memento using small pieces of the things she doesn't want to throw away, rather than keeping the whole thing.

Then let her have one bag per weekend to sort through, throw away what she can and sensibly store all the rest.

Also, go back in time 10 years and teach her to keep things tidy as soon as she is old enough to understand the concept. Yes I know everyone has perfect 20:20 hindsight sorry

I remember my mum blitzing my untidy room when I was at school once so i could start afresh in a clean tidy room.Could you do that for her then insist she keeps on top of it?

Do you know what, I actually would help her to get this done. This is what we did with DSS when it got into a real state. We helped him, made sure he knew where things went - washing into the basket when he took it off, clean washing in the drawers when we put it on his bed, etc.

We said that if he keeps it tidy he gets his pocket money and screen time etc.

Starting afresh from a clean and tidy room is by far easier to keep up with the tidying. So if you are off today, tidy it - it's not much harder than throwing things away.

Plus, I assume that it's YOUR money that has paid for the things that you'd be throwing away.. so you're shooting yourself in the foot anyway tbh.

Not a practical solution, but I had to share a bedroom with my sister who was just like this. I ended up putting tape down the middle of the room and booting all her stuff over to her side. EVERY TIME. In the end my dad just built a partition so we had separate rooms, but I appreciate this probably isn’t an option ( but maybe and extention pole and a long curtain is lol).

I was that untidy child. I’d be ordered to clear my room and I’d get completely caught up going down memory lane with various items and indecisive as to whether to keep or throw stuff out. No I wouldn’t do this. Your dd has asked you for help. Help her. You can teach her skills I was never taught.

My two are a bit younger (8 and 10) and I think they genuinely get confused when presented with a messy bedroom and told to "tidy".

I break it down for them:

Pick up every single thing from the floor:

• separate clothes into two piles - 8yo and 10yo
• clothes into drawers - check they're clean as you go
• lego into lego drawer, toys into basket, books onto shelves
• put rubbish on the bin and dirty knickers on the landing to deal with after

Check the floor again and under the beds - even tiny pieces of lego, individual socks, crusts and tissues have to be picked up (imagine that!).

Make beds and fold cuddle blankets neatly. Onesies over the end of the bed. Any clothes/knickers found in bed go into drawers or onto landing.

Tidy bookshelves.

Take plates/glasses/laundry out to landing & I'll take them downstairs.

I offer to help but once they get started they don't really need me. It's more that actually getting started seems crazy.

I also don't "ask" or make it optional. They are told to do it, and that is final. No arguments, no dramatics, no crying or stomping. They have been told to do it and they will do it immediately. This only has to happen once every week or two though.

I would just clean it and offer the incentive for a months time if it stays tidy (and make the incentive about her room - a new duvet set and some fragrance sticks perhaps?)

I think the two of you should tackle the room together.

I’m thankful for my mother, she was a nurturer and used to help me with things when I was younger. Now I do the same for my DC. If Barking orders at your children doesn’t work, maybe you should rethink your strategy.