Doing a little Spring cleaning

[General_01]

Today I decided to get my 13 and 12 year old daughters cleaning their rooms. Long overdue on my part. They think cleaning a room is making nice stacks of crap in the coners and having a nice path from their door to their bed. I let them get away with this for the past year because I was busy working on my car and wasn't home alot on the weekends. So far we have made about six 13 gallon bags of stuff to be thrown in the trash. Just so you know, it is not all "garbage". I have been going through stuff with them and having them throw away old toys, old school papers they don't need any more and stuff like that. We still have a ways to go. We started around 11 AM and probably won't be done until 5-6. The joys of parenthood.

By the way, they are actually taking it quite well with not much grumbling.

[ITSA426]

Good luck with that Dean.  The 14 year old residing here lives about the same way.

[kidsixpack]

The key is keepiing things tidy so that they don't get that far oput of hand.  My girls hate it when I enter their rooms because I say pick it up and put it away 100 times before I leave, but eventually they do it on their own   Happend today!
KID

[jb666]

I think our kids must have taught each other how to keep a room "clean". We go through this act every couple of months.... I have no idea where they get it though, cause I'm a neat freak...

[General_01]

Thanks Lee. It went pretty well. Ended up with about ten 13 gallon bags of stuff to throw away. Glad to know my kids are the "norm".

Hey kid, I do the same thing with them. Todays lesson was "If you don't like spending a whole day doing this, then put the stuff away when you are done using it and throw away stuff you don't want right away instead of making a pile of it." The problem with kids is that when they bring something home from school or Valley Fair or someplace else like that, they think they want to keep it forever. After about a month of being buried under other stuff they want to keep forever, you can prove to them that they really don't care if they keep it forever.

All in all it was a very productive day. Both girls love all the extra room they have in there rooms now. All I have to do is hope some of todays lesson stays with them. We will see.

[RECHRGD]

I have two daughters.  When they were growing up one was a slob and the other was a neat freak.  They are now 36 and 38 respectively and nothing has changed.

[jb666]

Thanks Lee. It went pretty well. Ended up with about ten 13 gallon bags of stuff to throw away. Glad to know my kids are the "norm".

Hey kid, I do the same thing with them. Todays lesson was "If you don't like spending a whole day doing this, then put the stuff away when you are done using it and throw away stuff you don't want right away instead of making a pile of it." The problem with kids is that when they bring something home from school or Valley Fair or someplace else like that, they think they want to keep it forever. After about a month of being buried under other stuff they want to keep forever, you can prove to them that they really don't care if they keep it forever.

All in all it was a very productive day. Both girls love all the extra room they have in there rooms now. All I have to do is hope some of todays lesson stays with them. We will see.

You are one funny mofo!!!!!!!!!!!!! 

[General_01]

Thanks Lee. It went pretty well. Ended up with about ten 13 gallon bags of stuff to throw away. Glad to know my kids are the "norm".

Hey kid, I do the same thing with them. Todays lesson was "If you don't like spending a whole day doing this, then put the stuff away when you are done using it and throw away stuff you don't want right away instead of making a pile of it." The problem with kids is that when they bring something home from school or Valley Fair or someplace else like that, they think they want to keep it forever. After about a month of being buried under other stuff they want to keep forever, you can prove to them that they really don't care if they keep it forever.

All in all it was a very productive day. Both girls love all the extra room they have in there rooms now. All I have to do is hope some of todays lesson stays with them. We will see.

You are one funny mofo!!!!!!!!!!!!! 

Are you saying I am living in fantasy land? Don't worry. I never get my hopes up. I am pretty certain we will be going through this in January.

The big reason I am trying to get it done is because my oldest will be going in for ACL surgury in late December-early January and she won't be doing anything like this for a couple months. I am just making less for me and the wife to pick up while she recuperates.

[jb666]

Nah man, just ribbin' you a little bit.. I go through the same thing with my daughter (my older daughter has since moved out but was a ROYAL slob). Every time she cleans she says 'Wow, I love this, I'm gonna keep it this way!'... by the end of the week it looks like a bomb went off again..

[General_01]

LOL. I know your ribbin' me. But you do speak the truth. Your experience with your oldest sounds about the same as my experience with my daughters. Maybe you are right. Maybe they learned how to clean together.

[ITSA426]

You'll be surprised sometime later to learn they were paying attention.  Just don't hold your breath.