NY Times: Teen Bedroom as Battleground

Parent Cafe
1

<p>October 31, 2012</p>

<p>Bedroom as Battleground
By JAN HOFFMAN</p>

<p>KRISTYNA KRUEGER took a deep breath, girding herself to enter her 14-year-old son Brandon’s bedroom. Then she gingerly stepped in and described the spectacle.</p>

<p>“Every drawer is open,” Ms. Krueger said, speaking on the phone from her home in Lake Ozark, Mo. “His desk, the night stand, his computer desk, his dresser. You cannot walk without stepping on clothes, cords for charging things, cologne and body-spray bottles. He does paintball. That stuff is all over.”</p>

<p>She sidestepped his workout equipment but nearly tripped over a bowl of crushed potato chips that had been obscured by a sports award plaque. “Hmmm,” she said. “That’s not like him to take the trouble to cover it up. Probably an accident.”</p>

<p>She continued: “There are maybe 30 hangers in his closet, but they’re empty. Except for the clothes he would never wear, like a suit, which have been pushed to the back. But the bottom of the closet, that’s where his clothes are. On top of shoes. Which are on top of papers. And empty shoe boxes.”</p>

<p>She concluded, “His room is an absolute wreck.”</p>

<p>Yet Ms. Krueger’s tone was surprisingly matter-of-fact. With two older teenagers at home, she has become inured to the fury and frustration familiar to parents who have ventured into the teenage wasteland their offspring proudly call a bedroom.</p>

<p>This is the time of year when the mess kicks in, full force. Most of the weapons in the parental quiver (including threats and bribery) have long since been fired, just to get that bedroom ready for the new school year. And by now, it has reverted to its natural anarchic state. What is a parent to do?</p>

<p>And from the point of view of the beseeched and the berated, what is a teenager to do about the parent?</p>

<p>After consultations with dozens of parents, teenagers and professionals who specialize in adolescent mess, there is some good news: although teenage tidiness may be too much to hope for, sanitation is a possibility. Better still, d</p>

2

<p>I totally cannot relate. My teenagers are perfect and their rooms are pristine. </p>

<p>Hahahaha!</p>

3

<p>I have 3 kids - they’re all different. D1 - a total mess. No matter what we did, we could NEVER get her to meet our standards in room cleanliness. In most cases we settled for “a clear path from your bed to your door” in case of fire.</p>

<p>D2 - very neat, clean, tidy, decorated - Ms. Perfect</p>

<p>D3 - somewhere in the middle. Will meet expectations when expectations are clearly REITERATED - “You have to clean your room before you can go”</p>

4

<p>DD is a disaster. Not only is her room a mess but the debris seems to follow her throughout the house like the Pigpen character from Peanuts. I draw the line when her mess creeps into the public areas, which it does on a daily basis. </p>

<p>Our son used to have a pristine room, but now it has a more lived in atmosphere. This is actually more problematic for him than his sister as his room is tiny, somewhat akin to the cupboard under the stairs that Harry Potter slept in, only it’s upstairs. </p>

<p>I do insist on regular sheet changes and dry mopping as both kids have asthma and it’s hard to keep them healthy with an inch thick of dust on their floors.</p>

5

<p>You have to look through the pictures in that article. A few of those rooms make me sick, especially the ones with dirty dishes and garbage on the floor. Maybe my kids aren’t that bad. There are also a couple rooms that could be cleaned in under 30 minutes.</p>

6

<p>D has always been on the neat side and has gotten even more so now that she has lived with some very messy roommates.
S is messy. Really messy. You wouldn’t know it from his room because I pick up, make the bed, etc. every day. I know that I should just close the door and let it go, but I cannot stand to have a room in my house look like that. It only takes me about 5-10 minutes a day because I stay on top of it. When he moves out he can be as messy as he likes.</p>

7

<p>I could not live with the chinchilla straw and dirty dishes. OH NO. LORD, NO!</p>

<p>We don’t allow eating or drinking in bedrooms. That cuts down on at least some grossness.</p>

8

<p>Due to some recent reconfiguration of bedrooms (because D1 moving out permanently), and a collision of plans for D1, her BF, and my parents all planning to come visit for D2’s graduation, we are going to need to put my parents in D2’s room for a few days in June. It is a game of fox & geese & corn (mostly complicated by grandparent’s horror at the idea that D1, age 23, and her BF of 4 years MIGHT share a bedroom – can’t have that!). </p>

<p>Ack! I can’t actually imagine how we are going to get it “grandparent ready” for them to actually reside in the room… I am a little paralyzed at the thought. Should I make D2 start cleaning closets, shelves, etc. NOW so the task is smaller? Or will it all be so trashed again so soon that it is just a waste of time, and she should just do it a couple of weeks prior to their visit (in the midst of graduation parties and activities)? I read this article a few days ago, and it just deepened my funk on this issue… I am ignoring it for now, at least until the college applications are done.</p>

<p>An alternate plan is the purchase of a (hopefully comfy) foldout bed that could be placed in the downstairs library for the BF. I am seriously considering it…</p>

9

<p>Intparent - how long are we talking? 1-2 nights?</p>

<p>We have a Queen size inflatable mattress that sits about 2’ off the floor. It’s actually not bad. My husband and I take it camping. </p>

<p>I would opt for the boyfriend in the library. Does that leave an already “grandparent ready” bedroom available for them when they come? Wouldn’t that just make life SO much easier?</p>

10

<p>Probably 3-4 nights… it is a long drive for my parents, so they usually stay for several days. And D1 & BF are coming for a whole week. Yes, we have a bedroom with two single guest beds that we keep made up and ready to go at all times. And D1’s old room is set up as a guest room with 1 single bed now (she took her double bed when she moved out, or I would have put them in there). My thought was that D2 has a double bed, so if the grandparents sleep in there, D1 & D2 can use the 2 bed guest room, and the BF can have D1’s old room. Doesn’t work too well for D1 & D2 to sleep in D2’s double bed (D1 kicks…). But maybe D2 will go for that plan – being kicked might be better than truly deep cleaning…</p>

11

<p>After many years working with parents and teenagers, I see a bright line between untidiness (objects on the floor/chairs, bed unmade, drawers open) and dirtiness (anything involving food, drink, smells, vermin, or pet detritus). Untidiness in one room really does not affect other inhabitants of the house, and it’s better to close the door and ignore it. Dirtiness can, and is worth taking a stand over.</p>

12

<p>I’ll be the first to admit I am an untidy person. I hate doing dishes and unfrotunately do not have a dish washer. They sit in the sink till it’s full then I do them all at once. I’ve been trying to get in the habit of doing them right away so they don’t build up… but that isn’t working too well. Same with laundry! I probably have a months worth of mail sitting on my coffee table. One of these days, I"ll go through it. I pick out the bills as they come in and throw everything else there to be viewed at a later date.</p>

<p>that being said, I am not at all a dirty person. I’m allergic to dust so i vacuum, dust, and clean my hardwood floors regularly. My bathroom is clean as can be.</p>

<p>when i lived at home, my mom picked her battles. I very rarely ate dinner with my family due to my work schedule. My mom would not come around and pick up dirty dishes out of rooms… but every time my mom was about to load her dish washer she’d yell for anyone to bring out any plates or cups for her. If i wanted laundry done, she would do it however it needed to be placed in the hamper and she would take the whole hamper away. She wasn’t going to pick it off the floor and would have no problem if i had no clean clothing left to wear. </p>

<p>I jokingly told her the other day that she wasn’t allowed to come over because i didn’t want her having a heart attach when she saw my sink hamper and coffee table.</p>

13

<p>While I agree you have to pick your battles - and for some kids and sometimes that might mean simply closing the door…</p>

<p>There is value in teaching a child responsibility, tidiness, order and consideration for his/her surroundings and the things he/she has been given.</p>

<p>It’s worth a skirmish or two.</p>

<p>But I prefer setting the expectations early and being consistent. I have 3 kids. It worked with 2. </p>

<p>The other one…well, we had to pick our battles, and the room was a lesser worry than other things.</p>

14

<p>I am an ocd child sent from Heaven. I make sure every room in my house is tidy just the way I like it. </p>

<p>Sent from my HTC PH39100 using CC</p>

15

<p>I don’t engage in this battle. Maybe twice a year I’ll make him clean his room. That said, I don’t allow food in the kids’ bedrooms. That would gross me out to have old food sitting there for months. Some of those pictures were disgusting, and I couldn’t live with that. Agree with pp that there’s a difference between being untidy and being dirty.</p>

16

<p>That’s sad when parents have to make their children clean their rooms. Especially so close to adulthood. </p>

<p>I’m a neat freak myself. I find myself cleaning my mom’s room tbh. ^O^</p>

17

<p>S2 is at a Service Academy and required to keep his room neat and clean. You would never know it by looking at his room at home. BUT, this year he has been home less than 2 weeks, so who cares.</p>

<p>S1, S2 and D1 all do their own laundry when they are home. It’s not a bad tradeoff.</p>

18

<p>I highly recommend this book:</p>

<p>[The</a> Blessing of a B Minus: Using Jewish Teachings to Raise Resilient Teenagers: Wendy Mogel: 9781416542049: Amazon.com: Books](<a href=“http://www.amazon.com/Blessing-Minus-Teachings-Resilient-Teenagers/dp/1416542043/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1352827602&sr=1-1&keywords=blessing+of+a+b+minus]The”>http://www.amazon.com/Blessing-Minus-Teachings-Resilient-Teenagers/dp/1416542043/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1352827602&sr=1-1&keywords=blessing+of+a+b+minus)</p>

<p>It won’t magically make all one’s teen issues disappear.
But it’s a start.</p>

<p>Don’t worry about the “Jewish teachings” in the sub-title in case that is a concern for anyone. It is completely, in that sense, a non-religious book.</p>

19

<p>S was home from college over the summer, but moved out rather than adhere to our minimal cleanliness standards. His room was truly disgusting.</p>

<p>I think this was a ‘fouling of the nest’ - literally! as there were attitude issues as well. He has since apologized and is coming home for Thanksgiving.</p>

<p>After he left, I cleaned the room up (practically needed a hazmat suit) and the room is being used for some household storage as well as a spare bedroom.</p>

20

<p>I just went back and looked at some of those photos. Oh my.</p>

<p>The boy’s room with the chinchilla cage was over the top. How can that kid breathe in that room with all that litter and straw? That would make me crazy.</p>

<p>I don’t allow food upstairs, so that’s one saving grace.</p>