Clean Your Room!

Our Thanksgiving was great, thanks for asking.  No, I didn't take pictures.  Moving on.

Miciah's Room

Miciah has trouble keeping her room clean.  I know, I know, she's only 10, but honestly, she's crazy messy.  I've posted about this before.  It's not a new issue.  Sometimes I can't even look into her room without wanting to puke, and that is NOT an exaggeration.  That kind of clutter makes me physically ill.  (So if you ever come to my house and wonder why it's normally pretty clean, you know why.  I'm a selfish person.  Having a clean house isn't optional.  Also, if you're wondering if YOUR house makes me uncomfortable, the answer is no.  It doesn't.)

Rob and I have been talking to her about cleaning her room for the last month.  She always has an excuse for why it didn't get done.  She's too busy with homework.  She had to do piano.  She was playing with her friend.  Rob threatened to go in to her room with a trash bag if she didn't clean up.  But, of course, he didn't actually do that, cause that sounds mean.

Well, Thanksgiving weekend we finally decided enough was enough.  She was gone for a few days, so Rob and I actually went through the room with trash bags.  We came out with 2 bags of real trash, 4 bags of crap that was on the floor or otherwise out of place (including 1 full bag of clothes), and 2 chairs that had been mistreated with a marker.

When I picked Miciah up on Sunday I told her that we had a surprise for her in her room.  She got excited and said, "Did you clean my room?!"  I told her we had.  "Hurray!"  I told her to hang on, cause there was a part she wasn't going to like.  I told her what we had done, and then I gave her a plan to get her stuff back.  Here's the simple plan:

She has to keep her room SPOTLESS for a week, and then she can have back 1 bag at a time.  So that's a 4-week total process.  If she doesn't keep it clean in a week's time, then I get the bag to do with whatever I wish.

That's it.  After those 4 weeks, her room will have to be cleaned weekly, not daily, and she'll have to pick up after every single craft project that she does.  And that's the end of the new rules.

I also talked to her about how it was out of control, she knew it was out of control, and that if she can't take care of her stuff better than that, then she can't get any Christmas presents, either.  Cause that's what mean parents do.

Miciah was silent.  I asked her if she was mad at me.  This is the best part of the story:
She said, "No, I'm mad at myself."
That surprised me.  I asked her why.
"Because you did what you should have done.  I didn't take care of my stuff, and you told me that it would happen."

And in my head I shouted, "YESSS!"  How many times are we going to get that kind of parental validation from our kids?  Like, about never more times.

So has she been keeping her room clean?  Umm, yes.  I've never seen it cleaner.  I've been very, very impressed.

Elijah's Room

To give Miciah's story a parallel, let's talk about Elijah.  Elijah also doesn't like cleaning his room, but he does it every time I ask.  EVERY time.  He's not a huge detail person, though, so often things get thrown on shelves or under the bed.  Mostly I don't care.  At least the floor is clean, right?

But lately he's been asking for some pictures to put on top of his bookshelf.  That baseball one that I put in the last post, plus the team photo.  I told him that it wasn't possible, because he didn't have enough room for any more stuff.  He protested, saying that there was plenty of room.  I spelled it out for him a few times, saying that there was just too much crap in his room.  Toys, papers, junk.  He didn't fight me after that, but he did bring it up a few more times, and I laid down the same expectation:  If you want pictures up, then CLEAN your room.

So he did.  (Pause on that line for a second.  Take it in.  "So he did.")  For an hour and a half one night, he cleaned his room.  His friend came over to play, and Elijah told him that he was busy.  When he finished, there was not a scrap of paper left, toys had been taken downstairs, and the tops of the bookshelves were nearly spotless.  Clearly, there was a place for those pictures now.  He came out and said, "There, Mom.  I cleaned my room."

Here's another thing that I love about Elijah.  He didn't immediately demand that the pictures be put up.  He didn't get all snotty about how great he was, though he was obviously proud of his hard work.  He just left it at that, "My room is clean," and moved on with his day.

So of course the pictures are up now.  Love that child.  Sometimes he doesn't like when things aren't done his way, but give him another way, and he meets your standards and then some.