How to Get Your Preteen to Clean Their Room

Getting your preteen to clean their room can be quite the chore on your part. While come children are naturally neat and tidy, the majority of them are far from neat and tidy. As parents, we can't stand walking into our child's room only to be bombarded with toys, books, crayons, old papers, clothes (both clean and dirty) and even shoes and bookbags. Children hate cleaning their rooms, especially if they have to do it alone. Here are a few tips on how to get your preteen to clean their room.

Help- Helping your preteen clean their room does not mean that you clean their room for them. Helping is just that, helping. Give them suggestions on where to put their things. Just being in the room with them is a motivational tool. Sit there and chat with them while they are putting things away. Read them a story or just talk about an upcoming trip. This can be a good time to talk to them about their day at school and find out what interests them at that point in time (their interests change on a daily basis).

Declutter- When you have a preteen who has every toy under the sun it is time to spend a few minutes decluttering. How is a child suppose to clean their room up when they have too many things to find homes for? Decluttering your preteen's bedroom should be the first step to a clean and well-organized room. Help your preteen create three piles of items in their bedroom. One pile for things that they can't live without. One pile of things to give away to charity and, lastly, one pile of things to be thrown away. By doing this you will have decreased the amount of things in your preteens room by two-thirds. It makes a huge difference.

Organize- Once the decluttering is complete it's time to think about organization. Let your preteen offer up their ideas on how things should be organized. Allow them to help you shop for organizational tools like shelves, cubbies, crates, storage containers, etc. Keep like things together. For example, keep doll clothes and accessories close to the dolls. For small toys you can use a clear pocket hanging shoe storage bag on the closet door. If you find that your preteen has a hard time keeping their closet clean think about adding a few more shelves and some hanging hooks. You may even consider removing the closet door all together and hanging up a bead curtain so that your preteen has to see the contents of their closet everyday and will be more apt to keep it organized. Use baskets and bags to organize things like books, shoes, bookbags, etc. Labeling the storage containers will also help your preteen remember what belongs in which container.

Redecorate- Maybe your preteen's bedroom is outdated. An eleven year old girl wil probably tired of looking at those cute teddy bears that your painted on her walls when it was a nursery. You could use the idea of redecorating in order to inspire your preteen to keep her room clean. A nice "new" room will really help him or her feel special and want to keep it clean. You can even use this time to declutter and reorganize also.

Privledges- If you have tried everything and you still can't get your preteen to clean their room then it may be time to think about your preteen's privledges. You could start restricting their computer usage until they clean their room. If your preteen likes to watch televeision before bed then consider taking away tv time until their room is clean. Keeping a clean room shouldn't be a choice. It should be considered a normal, everyday part of the household just like laundry and dishes are. Would they like it if you just up and decided you didn't really want to wash their laundry any longer? No they wouldn't. Show them that keeping their room clean is something that just has to be done. No one likes doing it but we all do it anyway.

When it comes to getting your preteen to clean their room it's good to allow them some choices in how it's organized. They have to live in their room while you are only a visitor. When you try to teach them about organization and tidiness you may feel that it goes in one ear and out the other but they are listening. They may not decide to follow your teachings right away but, with your persistance, they will slowly begin to handle the job of cleaning their room all by themselves. You will then be able to stand back and reap the rewards of a clean and tidy room.