I am NOT unreasonable, I am quite REASONABLE in fact, but I am RANTNG!!! My blardy daughter.....

[Psychomum5]

......JUST CANNOT KEEP HER ROOM TIDY

grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr

she is 12, she has dancing, drama, stage classes, scouts (and camping like tonight), other lovely things........all I ask s that she keeps her room as tidy as possible, and that when she comes home from camp (like last october......), SHE EMPTIES HER BLOODY BAG!!!!!!

god I am so farking wound up at her, and she went to camp over 2hrs ago now!

she has camp (obviously), and I asked her 3 days ago to sort her room, and start sorting her clothes.

she tells me she did (and to be fair, I should have checked, but I have had a shitty week with DD3 and MIL being in hospital for heart probs culminating in an op yesterday), and I believed her till today.

tell her this morning that I need all her bits for camp so I can pack, and she tells (promises) me that she will do it as soon as she gets in from school. (she gets home at 3pm while I am on the school run for the others, meaning she has 1/2hr spare.....)

anyhoo.....I get home running late and yell for her and DD1 to make sure they are ready for dancing (they also had ballet and stage classes tonight!)......also ask her if the clothes were sorted.

"yes mummy, they are all on your bed, is it okay for you to check and pack for me?".."yes, thats fine" I reply, thinking that it should be fine....

anyway....drop all the girls and DD2's friend at ballet, and return home. only ONE outfir on the bed (she needs 3), and no bag or waterproofs.

of I head to find them, only to have to delve under her pit bed and then find......HER BAG FILLED WITH ALL THE CLOTHES MISSING SINCE LAST OCTOBER, and not only that, they were dirty as well!

(hasten to add tho, she went on camp, and then the day after she came home we had a really bad car accident so she does have a kind of escuse, but still.......3 months

Conversation in our house goes like this.
" Tidy your room "
" Just a sec" (from behind her DS)
repeat conversation x 10

"tidy your room"
"I HAVE"
"Your "tidy" or my "tidy" ?

"Yours"

"So what about the week's worth of dirty knickers, school blouses, pyjamas, wet towels, smelly socks, school books, dirty cups, sweet wrappers and screwed up snotty tissues still on your floor?"

"Oh yeah, I forgot about those. Stop nagging me. You are making me all stessed out!"

AGHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH

I mean, does she even know what colour her carpet is?

PMSl.......sounds like my DD1 at times!

and no, she doesn't seem to know the color of her carpet, altho she does have the smallest room.

and even so, DD2 is STILL the worst!

mightly calmer now tho, what with all the filfthy and wind-up threads here tonight

logical consequences.

she needs three sets of clothing, but only packs one- tough- let her wear dirty clothing for three days.

make her pack her own stuff.

stop worrying about the state of her room- it's her space. just shut the door on it and refuse to go anywhere near it. do not bail her out by finding her socks for her in the mess. she is 12 and is therefore is technically as able as an adult to sort stuff out.

all borne of experience.

drink the wine, don't sweat the small stuff.

but duchess.....what about her poor 9yo sister who has to share with her????

she needs our compassion!

and a mummy happy on wine

ye gods, what will I be like with a 15yo?????????

I had a method which partially worked once they were teens. I told them that their rooms were their private terrritory to keep clean etc as they wished, BUT, that I would stick my head around the door on a regular basis and if it wasn't clean I would go in there and clean it myself. (thats not a threat you say) it is when you also tell them that you read all their diaries, show all their porn mags to their grandmother and other dispicable mother type things. It worked really well for DD, but DS1 decided at about age 16 that it didn't bother him as he got all his porn off his dad anyway. (safer than dodgy shops or internet sites).

.....fab 'threat'

altho dreading the DS's discovering the porn DH has hidden hasn't even discovered yet as he is so sweet and naive.....

if the two girls have separate beds rather than bunks, you could try my daughters' system- elephant tape border on the floor, delimiting the room into dd1's and dd2's. any crap on the wrong side can simply be thrown back onto the right side by the girls. (may not work for snow shakers, stereos etc...)

ooooh.......good idea.

altho how would it work for the shared drawers and dressing table, as that is a whole other thread!

Its amazing what you find under their mattresses. week old sandwiches, used condoms (he was trying to be clean and not have tissues everywhere), socks that smelt like ripe camenbert, YUCK!!!

have you tried cabin beds so that the dressers are under the beds?

used condoms????

nooooooooooooooooo.....nooooooooooooooo......never.

my babies being old enough for sex????

nooooooooooo

nt true, sticking fingers in ears, they can't possibly grow up that quickly...

(can they?)

Oh discover, suddenly you have really put me off teenagers. grubby creatures! I have a (young for his age) 14 yr old, so haven't quite reached this stage yet.

no money for cabin beds......blew the last lot on decent wardrobes, and the boys are seriously lacking in the decorating dept. Have promised them they are next, seeing as the girls have had new decor twice since the boys were born and their room done!

might be an idea for the boys in advance tho

I built my two DS their own study bunks. {proud emoticon} and slid the dressers under them at one end. They make great imaginary castles, dungeons forts etc.

oooh, the possibilities for the imaginary prisons forts for them to be barricaded in play wonderfully together in!

Fraid they do grow up that quick, especially the boys. All of a sudden you have a 6 foot tall rugby player with bristles asking you tom loan him money for "the machine" just in case, as they have already run out of the ones they got from the Family Planning, It was only 2 months before (well it seems like) when they were crawling on your lap for a bedtime story.
Its worth it when you get peole tell you that yopu have nice well mannered mature kids, and no Grandkids, YET!

well dd ( just 13) sounds much the same as yours
she assures me room tidy - clothes hung etc

it has reached the point wwhere for my sanity i DAREN"T go in her room

this week after a few particularly sullen episodes i went in . Under the bed was worse than i could have imagined - like you psycho MONTHS of crap wrappers clothes rubbish ...

i just got THE LOT from desk wardrobe under bed under chest of drawers and put it on her bed
then i cleaned the room and left

to me -lazy- is not the word
its beyond that. beyond disrespectful...

rant rant rant

sorry but this just struck a well timed chord

Psychomum I share your pain!
I have DD1-lovely tidy 14 yo, needs a bit of reminding now and again....
And lovely(grits teeth) DD2, room looks like bomb blast,have wept, threatened, defumigated, room still a tragedy.
I think the probem is my reluctance to follow through. When she was about 8 I let her go without lunch cos she forgot to take her luncjbox to school one day. She never forgot again.
Now I threaten to throw things away if on floor....but that would be a waste of money so I just moan.....
My solution?
lay down the rules that really matter, enforce them, and learn to close the door of her bedroom.....

well, once upon a time i had a darling little daughter, then I blinked............

and opened my eyes upon five little monsters glorious children and the one darling little daughter was now a huge (altho petite) 13yo with attitude

and all because I BLINKED!

god help if I blink again.....either wake to 10 monsters more kiddies, or each of the five will have five, making me a gran 25x over.....

oh please don't metion the lunch box fiasco.....PLEASE....

DD2 does that too.......4 times since xmas even, and me refusing to take it up never works as her friend loans her some lunch money and I end up having to fess that up too!, and STILL she forgets.

yet, all the others, not forgotten once as yet unless I have been rushing and forgotten to actually do them.

(altho we worked that one out, lunchboxes made the night before now and put in the fridge, so one less guilt-trip for me)

Ah but if you pay......ya see, you have to be rock hard.....she forgets, she borrows money, she has to pay it back herself..........

ds ones room is like a pristine bachelor pad

dd is such a slob - yes to fetted lunchboxes

If it makes you feel better, I collected 4 pairs of dirty knockers from DD2's room only this morning.....am steeling myself to look ubder her pillow tomorrow....BTW, does your DD have a thing about matching PJs? Mine won't wear anything that matches....no sirreeee