How should I play this? DD driving me mad!!

[PheobeBebe]

DD (13yo) has had trouble keeping her room tidy for a long time. It's just a huge mess, I have hurt myself going in there in the past as she has dropped earring or needles on the floor and not picked them up. The room struggles with mould around the window but she doesn't even open the curtains properly and has plants all over her windowsill making it extremely hard to clean. We have spoken about what would help her etc, she always says she wants us to ask her to tidy and not raise voices as when anyone gets angry it makes her push back, which I have stuck to (and when it's gotten really bad or gone on for long times I have warned her that I was starting to feel angry without raising voices etc so that we don't get to that point). She NEVER tidies the whole room, just a section and says that she's made an effort and it's better than it was.

Well, she wants to go on a summer camp related to her hobby. It's £550 so not a small sum. We initially said no due to the cost, but have decided she can use some of the savings we have for the kids as it would be a good experience and will help massively with the skill involved in the hobby. Today I told her that she can go IF she tidies her entire room and keeps it tidy for a month. I thought she would bite my hand off, jump up and down with joy and thank me! Boy was I wrong. She was quiet during the discussion and after I left she could be heard crying in her room! I tried to give her a cuddle and ask her what was wrong and keep the whole thing calm, but I must admit I got pretty pissed off and had some words with her as it was quite clear she wants the trip with no strings. She wasn't argumentative, but I told her she was being bloody entitled to think she can just have £550 while not doing the one thing we ask of her. I have offered to help her numerous times, I even tidied her floor and cupboard for her a couple of weeks ago which took me 2/3 hours - all she had to do was tidy up her make up and desk. Needless to say it looks like I never did anything now. I offered to help her today more than once but she insists she doesn't want assistance.
I'm really peeved that what I thought was a reasonable / nice gesture has created WW3. AIBU to feel annoyed with her? And to stick to my guns and say if it isn't completely tidy (and kept tidy) that she isn't going on the camp?

God I have this with 18 and 11 yr old Dds,drives me insane .

Why are there needles on her floor?!

Honestly I'd stop sweating about the room.

Have a rule that she needs to open the window occasionally.

Dd1's room is tidy; dd2's isn't. They are both teenagers. They both work extremely hard at school, are mostly joys to be around and if I don't have to look at the mess, then it is what it is!

I'm assuming sewing needles. Dd1 went through a sewing phase.

Yeah, pick up the needles should also be a rule.

I would stop getting so worked up about it to be honest - most teenagers are messy, i definitely was and my mum left me to live in a tip if I couldn't be bothered tidying it up. I am now a perfectly functional grown up.

she doesn’t want you mooching through her stuff either under the guise of helping.

I'm torn on this one. I had a very messy teenager, although they have hit 17 and the realisation they are about to be an adult and suddenly taken to not only keeping their room much cleaner but doing the odd bit of housework unasked.

I don't think you're unreasonable saying you have this expectation of her to keep the room safe, so no sharp bits on the floor, cleaning the mould/making sure the plants are put somewhere else. I'm not sure how I feel about the link to the trip away. On one hand I definitely agree with contributing to the household, but on the other hand, maybe the task just feels enormous to her (in that 13 year old everything is much worse than it is way), and she thinks she will just fail. Or that you will then expect it forever to be kept to that standard.

I know there will be posters that say, my two year old knows to keep their room tidy etc etc. I just wonder if she feels completely overwhelmed, whether that is reasonable or not, 13yos don't tend to be reasonable.

It's possible that it's a real struggle for her and she's crying because she feels she can't do it not because she won't. Executive function can vary in children and some will develop later than others. My 13yo is autistic, I'm not suggesting yours is, but that's why mine struggles. She can do her room if it's not too bad but if it's gone beyond a certain point she just can't. And keeping it tidy would definitely be beyond her. When she was little we used to just try not to have too much in her room so that it could never get really really bad but as we have a 3rd child now we don't have the extra storage space any more to store her things.

Sorry, I meant to also say I wouldn't link it to the trip if there's any chance she will fail, it's too big a thing to lose if she genuinely can't do it.

I think you need to lower your standards with her room. It's obviously something she really struggles with and there are ways you can help her without the pressure of a whole month.

Break tasks down to small, achievable things that only take a couple of minutes. Such as empty bin or tidy your top drawer.

This is the only way I can keep my house clean and tidy as an adult without getting overwhelmed by the bigger picture.

Please don't make the trip conditional on her room, that's too big an ask.

Could she be suffering from depression? The fact she was crying over tidying her room seems like there is more to it. Would she agree to a GP visit to talk about possible counselling?
The thing with the mould and the plants, it's not on if what she is doing is causing more damage, but can you get her a dehumidifier?
Be firm and say again, tidy your room each day and you can do the trip, deal or not? It's your choice. Stick to it and don't be angry if she fails, it's a lesson valuably learned.

It's possible that it's a real struggle for her and she's crying because she feels she can't do it not because she won't.
or crying because her mum has put her foot down and expects her to not live in a hovel.

I had an extremely messy teenager. I was also a very messy teenager!

My solution was to ignore. Keep their door closed and let them get on with it (something I wish my parents had done instead of coming into my Saturday job when I was aged 15, screaming at me what a slut I was).

Messy DC would, without fail, disappear into his pit bedroom every three or four weeks, armed with bin bags and dusters. He would reappear a few hours later, put his bed sheets and washing in the machine, wash up his mouldy plates and glasses. His room would be squeaky clean for all of, what, a day? Then the cycle would repeat! And I love him for that.

He's late 20s now, has lived with his partner for years and years. Their house is chaos and when they stay with me, they leave chaos behind!

OP, just let it go. Let your DC do whatever but don't go in her room, don't hunt for clothes to wash or cups to rinse. Let her figure it out. Just shut the bedroom door and leave it all to her.

As an adult, I admit publicly that a spare bedroom became a floordrobe in the extreme last year. When I ran out of knickers, I decided to get a grip. Five massive sacks of clothes went to the charity textile bins. And I found my pants!

I am an adult who was an incredibly messy teenager, fairly messy adult and now have a broadly tidyish house as an adult.

I've achieved this by having a cleaner - I know she's coming every Wednesday which means I am compelled to tidy every Tuesday.

I've also got to a point where I pretty much have an appropriate amount of stuff for the amount of space I have.

I also have coping techniques for my "risk areas" - of which dropping needles if definitely one.

So I have a bowl on my bedside table to ditch jewellery into. I have pots everywhere around the house where a needle and thread can go in from any place I'm likely to sew without moving. I have a washing basket directly in my bedroom so dirty washing has somewhere to go. I have one of those radiator airers I can shove half worn clothes onto. I have a basket for clean clothes so they don't get dumped somewhere when I fail to put them away in a timely fashion. I have a drawer divider like for cutlery in my bedside table so the myriad things I want to store in there each have a place to live.

None of these were things I knew to implement as a teenager and some of them (like having a cleaner) it's not possible to implement.

Why not agree to spend a day together clearing stuff out, thinking through what the problem areas are and getting to a clean baseline. Then set a realistic goal - that the room is totally tidy once a week by 8am on a Monday or whatever.

If that had been me I would have been upset because it would have felt like an impossible task. I wasn't deliberately messy, and as an adult I see that that sounds ridiculous but even up the age of 23 I found it almost impossible to be tidy.

Teens tend to be messy - especially those with ADHD. Some do find it really hard.

I’d have minimum standards - no dirty crockery, no sharp things on the floor, strip your bed, bring down the laundry and open the window.. but beyond that I wouldn’t sweat it.

If you want to make it a condition of the camp, then I’d focus on some basic long term rules like the above, rather than expecting her to keep it perfectly for a month (what’s the point in that?)

It does sound like she may be hurt in a teen hormonal way so go offer an olive branch.

@Papillon23 makes good points. As part of your olive branch chat see what you might both do to compromise.

I think you are right on this, £550 is alot of money. You are teaching her a life lesson about taking responsibilty and 'working' for something rather than it just being handed to you on a plate.

Thank you for the input everyone. Yes the needles are sewing needles, and she did get a greenhouse for her birthday so a lot of the plants will hopefully be moving outside fairly soon. I just can't get my head around leaving rubbish on the floor when you have a bin, or dirty washing on the floor when you have a laundry basket. It feels like a 1% extra effort to deal with those things, and I feel disrespected when she knows I find it upsetting but throws things on the floor anyway. She doesn't clean or open the window which is why I need to go into her room - I did get her a cloth to wipe away the condensation etc and asked her to open the window daily but she never did it, so it's my job again meaning I can't just shut the door and forget about it. In hindsight linking the trip to the task was a bad idea - I was hoping if she could make the effort for the month she might enjoy having a tidy room and learn ways to keep on top of it to carry it on, even half-heartedly, in the future. I'm also trying to teach her that we don't get all nice things handed to us on a plate - if you want a promotion at work for example you need to put in the effort and go the extra mile. I didn't think that two hours of tidying today and then putting things back where she found them was a very big deal, but maybe she does find it overwhelming.

With regard to the summer camp, disregard her mess, get her focused on something that she can and will achieve. She can't handle a clear bedroom so don't force that. Get her to cook meals, help with laundry, mow the lawn, pop to the shop or post office, set up a savings account and encourage her to either save pocket money or earn by helping out.

She will feel more motivated and, instead of having a threat hanging over her, she will have motivation, a reward and self gratification.

I'd love a spotless home but in reality I'm not a naturally tidy person. I find it easy to allow a room / the house to get in a complete mess, to the point where I find it extremely overwhelming at the thought of getting back to a reasonable state. I then become so overwhelmed that even the thought of clearing a small section seems too much!
What I find really helps is if DH & I start to work through it together. Could your DD be feeling too overwhelmed to face it and doesn't know where to begin? Could you help her to sort / clear / clean it initially and set the expectation that once it's done she is to take full responsibility to maintain it?

Yanbu you're asking very little of her and offering her something very high value. I'd offer to help with the initial clean up and then tell her to do 20 minutes a day of picking up and putting stuff away. It's really not hard. I expect a 7 year old to do it and she does.

How easy is her room to keep tidy? I have adhd and really struggle with executive function and keeping my house tidy and I easily get overwhelmed once the mess gets past a certain point. I’ve had to put lots of strategies in place to try to help me, things like additional storage, reducing clutter as much as I can, focusing on one area at a time, visual charts reminding me of what to do when and still I find I can’t stay on top of things. I think if being tidy comes easy to people it’s hard for them to understand how someone else can be so messy and disorganised, but I get completely overwhelmed and I will often cry over needing to tidy because the job seems too big and I feel like a failure before I’ve even started.

Are there systems in place to help your DD stay tidy? How much help do you give her? She is only 13 and can’t be expected to do everything independently yet, if she doesn’t open the windows is this not something you could do? If the plants make it hard to clean can you not reduce their number? Natural consequences like ‘I can’t clean around the plants and you don’t do it either so you have to get rid of them’ or ‘You don’t open your windows so I will have to go into your room to do it’ are surely better than hanging a non-related trip on this skill.

Can you tidy the room together and then help her, at least initially, to stay on top of things? For me body doubling is really helpful so if I need to tidy up it’s helpful to have someone doing it with me, or even just in the room doing something else whilst I clean to keep me on task. If she’s failing to keep her room clean it’s probably unreasonable to just expect her to suddenly get the skill overnight if you keep nagging, something suggests this is an area she can’t manage and where she needs more adult support to help her to develop strategies to keep things tidy rather than just an adult putting pressure on her to sort it. The fact you’ve helped her tidy before is great and I understand your frustration she didn’t then keep it today, but it also sounds like this is what she struggles with so maybe this is the area you need to be helping with, checking in every few days to make sure the mess isn’t building up to an overwhelming state.

@Papillon23 thank you for your suggestions. I promise I have really tried to talk to her about what would make things easier for her but she didn't have any answers - when I tidied for her a couple of weeks ago for her I did try some of these things e.g. I tidied out one of her wardrobe rails to receive her shirts which she likes to iron herself, so they are separate from the shirts which are ironed and in her 'ready to wear' wardrobe. I cleared a shelf on one of her units and put half worn clothes there for her. She already has a bin and a laundry basket. She has a seat which is hollow and I put all her hair stuff in there, not sorted so she can literally just lift the lid and dump it in, but that hasn't stuck. I will, when I've calmed down, go round her room with her and think if we can make any practical changes

Does she have carpet on her bedroom floor? If she does could you perhaps change it for laminate and a rug? She may be able to keep the floor tidy if she can see the needles etc. and give it a whizz with a vacuum once a week.

Perhaps do a daily chart for her so that on Fridays when she gets home from school she goes through whatever of her clothes she has out and puts the dirty clothes in the laundry basket. Saturdays she vacuums her floor, Sunday she gets a day off, Monday she dusts, and so on but one task per day.

£550 is a lot of money to just hand over.
Personally I think making a bed and putting dirty clothes in a laundry basket is a life skill.
If she’s not depressed , I would expect her to be able to keep her room tidy - that doesn’t preclude helping get the bedroom into a reasonable state with her help to start with.

I think this makes a lot of sense