How to get children to clean their rooms
A constant fight many parents have with their kids is the fight over the messy room. This is normal, but it does not have to be something you experience. So, how can you get your children to clean their rooms and keep them clean?
Here is what most people do:
Bribe: one way to get your child to clean their room is the old fall back, bribe them. Offer them a shopping trip, tell them they can do whatever weekend activity they asked about, or go with the standard bribe of cash. However, if you do this, their room won't stay clean, they did it for the wrong reason, and if it gets messy again, they know they will get another bribe to get it cleaned up.
Threaten: You can always threaten to take away privileges and belongings if their room is not clean. However, if they clean their room because of a threat, their room will only stay clean for so long, and soon your authority will wear off.
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A better idea to get children to clean their rooms:
Reward them: this is much like bribing, but with better intentions. This means that instead of saying you will give them something to do something, when they do it without being asked, you reward them for it. So, this means that their good behavior is rewarded, and they have more incentive to do it again. So, this means that they will want to clean their room again because they had a positive experience after doing so.
Positive reinforcement: this goes hand in hand with the above mentioned way to help get children to clean their room. This is a tactic that you start young. If each time your child does a good thing, you praise them and give them positive reinforcement, they are more likely to repeat the activity. So, start young, help your child clean their room, then praise them for having such a clean room. Do this repeatedly, and they will want to keep their room clean.
Start young: when your child is only a few years old, it is time to give them the responsibility of cleaning up their room. Teach them when they play to only take out one or two toys at a time, then put them back before choosing others. Each night, make a room pick up part of their bed time routine. If you instill a cleanliness habit when they are young, then as teens they will be more likely to keep their rooms clean.
Do a daily pick-up: children, and teens especially dread cleaning their rooms because of the fact that the mess has built up some much that it will take a long time to clean it up. So, one way to get your child to clean their room is never let it get too messy. So, instead do a daily pick-up with them, or insist that they do a daily pick up before doing anything else.
Set expectations: If your child knows that they need to clean their room and it must be clean before they go out, go to school, etc. they will probably keep it clean. They may want to leave it a mess the first few days to get out of school. But, after a few days home with no friends, and nothing to do, they will want to get back to school.
