Update....one tidy bedroom and no dramas.

Yay! :)

I knew there had to be a way, I just had to brainstorm it, yes!! :-)

Told my kids living in a room of your own is a luxery that they will probably not be able to afford especially if they made it to a pricey college, so they better get used to "shareing" by at least being considereate enough to keep their space in passable condition. Rarely did they have a private bedroom but their bed was their space and they helped decorate it. Often building, finishing, or painting some of their furniture since I worked selling unfinished furniture from the time they were real small.

I am sure having a parent or siblings in a wheelchair when they had two good legs they did not want to be considered "lazy" and or "ungrateful" that Mom did all the other stuff.

But they knew there was no question about making their own bed dailey (usually with handmade quilts they helped work, useing a hamper, emptying their trash, and returning their tray to the kitchen and racking their dishes before the next meal, and turning off lights ect. when not in use was something they started as toddlers. Or as other people suggest heavy duty detailing could be "arranged".

But I did make and effort to make my kids space easy to clean with shoe bags, toy bins, desk, bookshelves, a bullentin boards, file cabinets, and book bag hooks.

In the bathroom each child had a robe hook, towel bar, and toiletries caddy and if the timer on the ventilation fan ran out (about 20 minutes) and you were not done too bad next person pulled the plug on your privacy. LOL with pretty much and all male family privacy really wasn't a big deal.

Most the time with only a two bedroom place the kids got the Master bedrooom to share and the parents got the "other". Usually it was such a small room the dressers and night stands were in the living room with the TV and lamps on them but wasn't such a big deal because my kids grew up with an early bed time. In a military community people get up E-A-R-L-Y. lol

By the time my kids were seven or eight they were doing their own laundry. ( I mean how hard is it one scoop of soap, turn the knob, unload when the buzzer goes off fold or hang it up.) And putting it away was no big deal because they wanted to take care of their own clothes. They treasured the nice clothes they had and by the time they were ten they were earning their own money to buy the higher end stuff and don't kid yourself they made sure it was done just so.

Probably some of it rubbed off watching their Daddy do his uniforms and spit shine his boots but having "Mommy" buy or do their clothes was for babies. My thing was to always praise and reward my children for good habits. Was not unusual for important people to visit our home and when their rooms looked sharp they enjoyed showing their room.

That and my kids were always around kids who had little of nothing. It was not unusual for us to go out on Habitat for Humanity or family Promise builds and they knew how lucky they were not to be homeless.

So I just don't get the having to clean a kid, especially a teens, room. Living in quarters or on the economy where a dirty house would get you in trouble with chain of command such indulgence had a high "cost" nobody wanted.

I'm only 18, but I figured I would get my opinion out anyway.
When I was younger, I would just clean my room when I was told. No techniques or anything. Now I clean it on my own, although it hardly ever gets messy. I have to say I agree with oldsage to an extent. It's really about how well the parent does at teaching the kid decency.

when my kids were teens.....I set a washing machine box in the hallway.
I put in it a pillow and a blanket.
I hung a sign on the box.......
Keep this clean....or
I then hung signs on their bedroom doors....
You can keep this clean!!!!!
Given the choice.......
both my kids decided to keep their rooms clean!!!!!

our people have a saying.. When you beat a child with one hand, you draw him close with the other. From where i come from, at age 5 your are already entering the kitchen with your mum to watch her cook, and in a short while you are doing the dishes, by age 12 you are cleaning your room yourself without being told.. You order them to do it or do what the first response said..

You used a firehose didn't you?

Well I have 6 munchkins,

they have job list with 30 jobs on it, each child has to complete their list, which is exactly the same as the other children by Sunday night, they can pick what jobs they do each day as long as every job is finished on time. one is their bedroom. They can swap some of the jobs if they really hate doing something, as they have a swap list, but the bedroom is compulsery.


If they get their jobs done, they get pocket money and no extra work, if they don't their next weekend is spent picking up doggy Poo, and we have a great dane and another dog, so there is lots, and they miss out on their pocket money.

so as my youngest (12) says, he would rather do a few jobs and get his money, then pick up dog poo for free.

But ultimately it's still their choice to be responsible and decide which they would rather, I dont argue with them I dont threaten them, they are 12 to 18 so are all old enough to decide which they would rather do.
It works in our home and they respect that they at least have a choice

I am scared to clean my teen daughters room... something in there growled at me while putting away laundry the other day. I just close the door and tell her that her crushes mom is coming over for coffee and her crush MAY be here too... Nothing gets a kid to act semi-normal and clean their room in record time like the possibility of interaction with their crush lol