The Clean Your Room Dilemma
Has this ever happened to you? Your ask your daughter/son to go clean her/his room and she/he makes excuses, fiddles around a while, not really cleaning much of anything, and then asks for your help? We do this on a regular basis.
Saturday is Clean Your Room Day. I feel like I'm pretty laid back on both my kids about cleaning their rooms... We do make a priority of cleaning the common areas of the house every evening. But we don't require them to clean their rooms every night. I do encourage both of them to clean up their toys when they are done playing with them. When I do this, Andrew usually starts singing, "Clean Up, Clean Up," and happily follows my lead. (And I do help him, because he's two and can get easily distracted.) But with Aubrey, asking her to clean her room every day would be a daily battle. It also takes time, which time we would all rather spend doing meaningful things together.
Then it gets to Saturday, and Aubrey has to clean her room. Sometimes, when she doesn't clean up as she goes during the week, the job of cleaning her room is a little overwhelming. So, she is always asking for help. Most of the time, I either say yes, and I help her, or, I tell her to get going, and I'll come in in a little while to see how she's doing. And then I do that. It's not often that I just flat out say no, when she asks me to help her clean her room. Even though, in all honesty, I don't want to clean her room.
But all the while, I have this inner dilemma. Because I know she can clean her room herself. It might take her a while, but she can do it. I feel like she needs to learn to do things on her own. And like I said before, everytime I play with her I remind her, "let's clean this up now so we don't have to worry about cleaning it up later."
But do I help her with her big tasks so I can expect her to help me with my other cleaning tasks? If I help her, is that teaching her that "we help clean things together"? Meaning, will that lesson really translate into her helping me later with other things? Could cleaning her room be the "doing meaningful things together" I was talking about? Or, does she just ask for help because that way she doesn't have to do as much? (I feel slightly used....) Or, in the interest of teaching self reliance, (and also because I don't want to clean her room) do I make her do it all on her own? And if I do that, am I teaching her that I don't value helping each other, or that I don't take her feelings into consideration? (Because I know when I don't want to tackle her room cleaning, neither does she). Is she just asking for help because she doesn't want to be in her room alone? Is keeping her company while she cleans it herself good enough? There's probably not a right and wrong answer here, but I just don't want her to look back years from now and think, "You know, I always asked my mom to help me clean my room, because I was always really overwhelmed, but she never would." Do we just go back to having her clean her room every evening?
What do you think? What do you do?
6 comments:
oh my- this is really deep. you've really analyzed this thing. i can see where you're coming from on both sides. and you are nicer than me because i would make my kids clean their room everyday if it was messy. it would drive me crazy! so, my opinion- you are a nicer mom than me. does that help? :)
wow, i never thought this much about this issue. i would say she won't think that you're a mean person if you make her do it...one thing you could do is help her with all other areas of the house but tell her she should clean her room herself because that's part of what it means to be able to HAVE toys and all the fun stuff she has...and then maybe "clean" your room while she cleans hers...it's not like you ask her to help you clean YOUR room right? So just say you have to be accountable for your own spaces?? It's part of having your own room?? I don't know, that's what I think...but what do I know...every time we ask Evie to clean her own room she just looks at us blankly, what can I say. :)
I make my kids clean up their room and the gameroom every night and before we leave the house. I also have them do little jobs around the house (like wiping their pee from the bottom of the toilet) and bringing in the trash cans.
I occasionaly help them clean their mess but usually only if they are running late to bed because of me... or something like that. As they get older I will add more chores etc.
Sometimes they complain about cleaning up things that aren't their mess... Joe cleaning Oli's mess etc - I remind them that I clean other people's messes all the time and that that's part of being in a family and sharing space. I also tell them when they grow up they can keep their house as messy as they like... except that their wife might not stick around much if they do.
I'm no help here but i appreciate how deeply you've analyzed this!
I don't know, but will you help me clean MY room? =)
I have had this same delima for years. I don't mind helping a little but then I usually end up doing most of it. Samantha usually just wants the company so sometimes I will just go in there so she has someone to talk to.
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