How to Encourage Teens to Clean Their Rooms

Quit nagging and get better results through encouragement and motivation.

Difficulty: Moderately challenging

Instructions

Things You'll Need:

• Cleaning Cloths
• CD Stack Organizers
• Cleaning Cloths
• Feather Dusters
• Laundry Baskets
• Plastic Storage Drawers
• Storage Organizers
• Vacuum Cleaners
• Vacuum cleaners

1. Provide plenty of shelves and drawers so that your teen has a place for everything.

2. Teach your teen how to vacuum, sweep, fold clothes, dust and wipe down walls. Let him or her know that these skills need to be exercised in the bedroom.

3. Help tackle a big job once. Maintenance is easier with a clean start.

4. Work out a "clean plan," creating an actual map of where things go. Put trophies, stuffed animals, Barbie collections, CDs, shoes, pens and pencils and the laundry basket on the map. Tape the map on the inside of a closet door.

5. Work out a reward plan. For a month of cleaning, add a little extra allowance or buy the sneakers or CD your teen has been wanting.

6. Encourage teens to throw out the unused, unwanted and unloved.

Tips & Warnings

• Neat and tidy is often copied from big sisters and brothers and moms and dads.
• New bedclothes, curtains and painted walls can make a teen proud of a room and more likely to keep it picked up.
• Fun storage items such as CD stacks, color-coded plastic bins and hampers can help organize.
• No matter how bad the room gets, sometimes you have to bite your tongue to respect your teenager's privacy and sense of who he or she is.
• Dirty laundry, wet towels or old food can end up being a health hazard. Keep an eye on things.

[crobs808]

on 5/22/2009 Is this a joke...reward them for doing something they are SUPPOSED to be doing anyway? Buy them a CD for cleaning their room? WHAT? A CD costs about $10-$15. So, I have to pay my kid to clean his room

[soccermom2]

on 9/12/2008 When the room gets so bad, I take pictures of the room and threathen to place them on the internet where their friends can see what a slob they are. I haven't had to place one yet, but my boys know I will if the rooms not clean!

[treschiic]

on 4/10/2007 As a teen I know how much we hate to clean. I have always been messy. But once i start cleaning, I can't stop! Creating a good atmosphere with music and sunlight always helps me. I sort my things into piles--clothes, books, jewelry, etc. And keep a large garbage bag close at hand for anything I want to throw away. Before I know it, my room is clean! But the number one tip: DON'T NAG OR PUNISH! Subtle hints usually do the trick. If your teen wants their room to be clean they'll do it. It's their decision.

on 8/8/2006 The way you get your kids to clean may vary, depending on the kid. I am 14, and I have no real social life, so my parent's can't do the "no friends until your room is clean!" thing. My parents nag me a lot to get my room clean, so eventually I will do it to get them off my back, or I'll get fed up with the mess and just clean.

Just let your kids clean the way they want. It's really dumb to keep nagging them while they are in the process of cleaning. Personally, I clean slowly. My parents always tell me to hurry up, but I think that doing that just leads to a poorly done job. If a kid is worried about getting it clean by a deadline, they'll panic and shove it all under their bed.

Let you kids clean at their own pace, in their own way. Let them set goals for themselves, and let them reward themselves in their own way.

Another useful tip is to get them things like storage tubs and closet organizers. They work quite well, actually.

on 8/8/2006 Don't use a lot of storage tubs. They take up more room. And if you put all different kinds of things in there, you just have to go through them all later to find what you want.