Teenager's room

[mikedyson]

DD 13 often has a messy room.

DP thinks that in addition to insisting on a minimal level of personal hygiene (no argument from me), we should insist DD makes her bed and keeps her room tidy every single day.

DP says they don't know anyone who wouldn't insist on this and if we let it slide, DD will grow up not being properly socialised and developed.

I will admit I think DP has better parenting skills on the whole - and has raised a teenager in past. DD is my daughter, not DPs.

YABU=Insist bed made and room tidied every day
YANBU=Cut DD some slack due to age

I'm afraid I did "train" my teens very early, that their rooms had to be clean and tidy. Rules are no food upstairs, drinks allowed, but cups cleared and in the dishwasher once a day. Beds made every day. They dust and hoover each weekend. Clothes are either in the wash basket or on their chairs for the next day.

It's how I live, so I expect the same from them!

Thinking about it, I started really early with toys. Everything had to put away at the end of play, or before bed. Everything in its place. What a tyrant I am . I do have a very, very, clear, clean, clutter free, tidy house though.

Demands from your DP that his DSD tidy her room every day will quickly destroy their relationship and threaten yours. Life will be hell.

Don't put him in charge or let yourself be lectured by him about your parenting! What experience does he have of raising teens, I wonder? Why does he think he is the fount of all wisdom on this?

Tell him you're in charge and will do the heavy side of this, he is not the monitor or judge, he can have the fun stuff with her. The bedroom has a door that closes, right? He has no business opening that door or looking inside, ever. No business opening his mouth and saying one word about the state of it. That's your job.

Reasonable, I think, is her making the bed every day, changing the linen weekly, no dirty clothes on the floor, no crockery or cutlery abandoned in there, and a clean and tidy through once a week done by a set time agreed between you and linked to privileges she enjoys so you can reward or withhold.

She might need a set of cleaning materials in a carry tray and some basic teaching about dusting and hoovering so that she knows what good looks like and how to achieve it.

On the personal hygiene front, on no account allow her DSF to be commenting negatively on how she looks or smells! You insist on the daily shower, regular shampoo etc and he keeps right out.

If he ever starts teaching her disgust for her own body, he needs to be through the front door so fast his feet don't touch the floor.

Sorry, OP, I see he has raised teens! Does he have a great relationship with them now? How often do they spontaneously call or visit to tell him they love him and thank him for their childhood? That is the mirror to look in to see what relationship he will make with his DSD.

And yes, adult kids do call and visit and say thank you unprompted. They also offer searing feedback on the parenting mistakes you made with them, but in a loving spirit if you got things largely right.

If you enjoy fighting a losing battle every day and feeling like you've failed as a parent, go down the 'insisting your bed is made and room tidy route'. I've come to the conclusion that my delightful, lovely, helpful teenage DSs will come out of the other side of being happy living in a fetid pit of doom at some point.
Our house is very tidy and clean - their rooms are a complete disaster most of the time.
I've stopped doing it for them, but will wash clothes/bedding etc if they bring down laundry bins but the rest is up to them. I shut their bedroom doors so I can't see the mess, otherwise it's a slippery slope to dismay and disgust.
They both get up and out for school/college, get good grades and are generally very lovely, so am now picking battles and hoping they mature out of this stage soon.

My 7 year old keeps her bedroom tidy so I would definitely expect it from a teenager.

As someone who was expected to keep their room so spotless you could eat your dinner off the surfaces, I really don't care. I change the bedding occasionally (or she does), periodically clothes get put in the laundry basket, and twice a year she decides to completely tidy up. (And I am naturally a tidy person.) As another pp put, pick your battles, or you will find as teens get older you feel like you're constantly nagging about everything and they will just stop listening.

Just shut the door.

Dishes down every day, clothes in the wash basket was all I ever asked for.

@DigOlBick

My 7 year old keeps her bedroom tidy so I would definitely expect it from a teenager.

Mine kept their rooms tidy when they were 7 too.

Delusional to think a 7yo room tidier will morph into a tidy teen!!

We just had general standards, it was expected the bed was made and curtains opened, then things just got put away.

I wouldn't be happy to live with a pit of a room in the house, but I have never met any resistance to just keeing things normally OK, so not sure I can really comment.

Thanks everyone - I was hoping for a clear consensus as often happens on here, but the community seems as divided as we are.

@NewlyGranny

Reasonable, I think, is her making the bed every day, changing the linen weekly, no dirty clothes on the floor, no crockery or cutlery abandoned in there, and a clean and tidy through once a week done by a set time agreed between you and linked to privileges she enjoys so you can reward or withhold.

My question was about whether the requirement to make the bed daily etc was too stringent - these are what DP wants me to "enforce" and they are not things I've rigorously adhered to previously. However if they are essential/reasonable then I am prepared to be swayed. At the moment replies seem about 50/50.

Curtains open, lights off
Laundry in the basket
Towels hung up
Crockery and cutlery brought down daily (more or less)
They have to get everything off the floor once a week "for the cleaner" - if it's particularly bad in between, they get The Face
If they have clean washing they don't put away, they get The Face
They change their own beds once a week (more or less)
Can't be doing with daily bed-making - or rather, nagging about daily bed-making - life's too short

my DD was clean, no question, but her room was a massive tip. You couldn't see the floor for clothes.

I insisted that all crockery, cutlery etc was brought out every day, and apart from that never went in.

She lives on her own now in an immaculately tidy flat.

Don't sweat it.

Wouldn't even worry about how she will be when she's an adult

If you think your DD is capable of making her bed then just tell her do it

If you feel her room should be tidied everyday then just tell her to do it- this is a hard one though as some people are tidy and some people aren't But aslong as your DD doesn't have anything like dyslexia or ADHD or something then possibly just tell her could work

@Brollywasntneededafterall

Delusional to think a 7yo room tidier will morph into a tidy teen!!

I thought my 7 year olds would never grow up to swear, answer back or drink alcohol..oh how we soon learn 😆

OP, as you can see from the range of answers, it really is a personal thing. If you're happy with the existing situation, not sure it's really your DP's place to insist on anything different.

As for DD not being properly developed or socialised, is your DP always this pompous?

I expect clothes to be either in the dirty washing basket or in the drawers/wardrobes and dirty dishes brought down each evening, but anything else, I’ve given up with. I’d stand no chance getting them to make their beds in the morning, but then I don’t think I ever did that as a teenager and now it’s the first thing I do when I get up in the morning. Despite being a messy teen (I used to keep dirty dishes in a drawer as I was too lazy to take them back to the kitchen), I’m really house-proud now, and the house is always clean and pretty tidy.

@Brollywasntneededafterall

Delusional to think a 7yo room tidier will morph into a tidy teen!!

I agree, there’s lots of things my 7 year olds did/didn’t do, that I wish they’d kept up as teenagers! They get a mind of their own As teenagers and all I can hope is that we get out the other side with Fully functioning adult children!

We have five teenagers , can be a mess when they’re using it but as long as some sort of effort is made it’s ok !! Eg dirty washing, crockery brought down !! Hard for me as I am a neat freak but I was fighting a losing battle to expect really tidy

I'm a very, very tidy person who doesn't really tolerate mess, but even I have worked out that its got to be a compromise when it comes to teens rooms!

Luckily for me, my teens have an entire floor to themselves, so I don't need to know what their rooms look like day to day, but they know I have an expectation that they keep them broadly acceptable and hygienic.

Twice a week, I go up to that floor to hoover, clean, empty bins, clean bathroom, change beds and empty laundry basket etc as needed. They know which days these are, and I make sure to remind them the night before. When I go up there, their rooms are pretty tidy, but not necessarily spotless. The rest of the time I leave them be. In my mind I like to imagine that they always keep their rooms tidy, but I would expect that's unlikely to be the case. Keeping up the twice a week cleaning does mean that nothing gets really bad or out of hand, and we spot and deal with any maintenance issues in good time. I know I should be handing over the cleaning over to them now that they're both teens, but this system works smoothly for us, so I don't want to muck with it!

So on the whole, I guess I'm saying compromise. I don't think its OK to let teens live in a pigsty, but equally its not reasonable to be expecting spotless rooms daily.

To give some hope my adults ds's have spotless houses and live alone!!

Mikedyson, I think the $64k question here is: what would you be enforcing if your DP were not on the scene?

The answer to that shows you the line you feel comfortable taking with your DD. Go with whatever feels right and reasonable to you and her, leaving DP out of it.

Then, when you've decided, tell DP what your decision is and make clear to him that he doesn't get to control, coerce or comment - to you or DD - what happens beyond her bedroom door. If her mess creeps into shared areas of the house, everybody needs to be involved in a strategy for solving that.

With three teens, I bought a big IKEA recycling box and put it in the porch. Random stuff lying about tripping us up in shared areas got dumped there and they knew they had to go and scrabble for it. OP was messy with his shoes and they went too; same rules for all because we shared the space. Your DP can't expect standards he isn't consistently modelling himself.

He needs to rein right in on the demands on you to enforce stuff on DD. That makes you piggy-in-the-middle and that will destroy any calm and happiness in the home.

Once again: who put him in charge? Take back control.

Beds need airing! A duvet reasonably neatly folded down to the foot when the occupant gets up is a bed being aired, not an unmade bed. The pillow gets fluffed and straightened and the duvet gets wafted tidily over the bed when the occupant comes home - the work of a moment or three.

I told my DS that I would put clean duvet cover and pillowcase outside his door every week, I gave him a laundry basket and then I told him that the state of his room was entirely up to him. I would visit as a guest in his room to play computer games with him, or just chat, but unless he joined in I would never clean it again.

It was a total, absolute tip some weeks and half way decent others but I held firm. About once a year he asked me to help clean it out and provided he did the lion's share I helped him.

Oddly when he left home he kept his own place nicely and now that he has a DP of his own, the two of them have a lovely home and I'm told he pulls his weight.