Too harsh?

[LaLaLuna]

Sigh. I am at wits end with my 6 year old, for many reasons (one or two of which I've written about here before...).

Yet another ongoing problem we have is that he trashes his room. Absolutely pulls EVERYTHING, including the rod from his closet with clothes hanging on it down and makes a huge stew on his floor that he then refuses to clean up or even HELP clean up. Typically this is during the course of a play date; we have banned him having friends up in his room but inevitably he and they sneak up when I am out in the yard, or visiting with the mama or otherwise distracted. Sometimes he just does it himself. He plays with some of his toys, but not when they are scattered across the horizon and back again. So. I am thinking that attention-seeking behaviors aside, he just has too many toys. Far more stuff than is reasonable for me to expect him to care for. I know that at 6 years old he is not able to keep a neat and tidy room all by himself but he won't even help clean up. He gets upset. I get upset. It's all just too upsetting. So I am considering this; keep all the books. Books are gold, as far as I am concerned. Keep his snugglies because he is deeply attached to them (and he only has 5 or6). Ask him to pick out his 10 favorite toys, which he will keep and GET RID of EVERYTHING else.

What do you mamas think; is this just a tactic of despair or do you think it may have some merit, as far as simplifying his environment to the point that he (and I) are not overwhelmed by it?

[mamaofthree]

Is it posible to store some of them? And maybe rotate them every month or so, so he doesn't get bored? Maybe the ones that you like and he likes, keep and the rest donate, but keep the a small amount in his room. That way every month or so it is like he gets new stuff with out actually having to spend money.
I don't think you are being harsh though. I have to go thru my kids stuff a couple times a year and thin stuff out, otherwise it is a nightmare. :

H

[lactivist]

What about asking him for ideas about how to make it work when you aren't in the middle of it? He may want 12 toys or only 8 but if it is his idea it may work much better. I know that with my kids at that age it was very common for this to occur and we did simplify their environment. With my son he was very attached to all his toys and would play with all of them at different times. Our compromise was to organize his room into storage buckets and he could only take one out at a time and then clean up and then move on. I had to be pretty vigilant at first but it did work. The other thing we did was to box up many toys and put them in the garage and do a toy box rotation. If he wanted something from the garage he had to pick a bucket to go out to replace it. This way he got the benefit of his toys without the overwhelming mess. Good luck!
Wendi

[sehbub]

I think thinning things out, and letting him be involved is a great idea. Some control might help him!

As far as not being able to clean his own room at 6, I don't totally agree with that (although every child is different!) only because my DSD1 (6 also) has been straightening up her room by herself for the last year, and her sister (4) is now responsible for her side. They can put their clothes away in the dresser after I wash and fold them, pick up their toys, and at least put their sheets and blankets back on the bed in some semblance of "making" them.

Maybe your DS would be willing to clean more if he had an incentive? Our girls of course like being rewarded for things that are above and beyond their normal picking-up routine, i.e. straightening up their playroom once a month, for which they get to pick a movie to watch after dinner, or helping wash the dishes, for which they each get $.50. On Saturdays, DSD1 dusts the staircase banister for her $.50, which DSD2 takes all the laundry hampers back to their appropriate rooms for her money.

Just a thought! It may count as bribery, but it sure does work!

[Roar]

Getting rid of stuff that is never used is certainly a good idea. I would also suggest thinking about rotating toys. So, you may put all the train stuff in one rubbermaid box, the animals in another, etc. and then put some away in the back of a closet or whereever. Once a month or so you switch it up. It is like a holiday when new stuff comes out.

[annethcz]

I don't think that's harsh at all. Boxing up unused toys is a great first step.

And I don't think it's unreasonable to expect a 6yo to keep his room somewhat clean. My 5 & 6yo sons share a room, and they're expected to keep it in decent shape. They put their clothes in their drawers and closet after I wash them, they 'make' their beds, they pick up the toys off the floor. About once a week, we do a big clean up- beds are stripped (but I help to put the clean sheets on), the boys clean up all their toys, pull everything out from under the bed, and the boys vacuum.

I'm not super strict about this, but doing a nightly clean up REALLY helps to keep the room from getting trashed. And in cases when my kids are feeling like they don't want to clean up, I have on occasion told them that they will lose everything that's not put away within the next 15 minutes. After 15 minutes, I come in with a big bag and take away anything that's still on the floor. Depending on the situation, the things I take away are either stored, donated or trashed.

In our house, we also talk frequently about the importance of treating our home with respect. My kids are also often told that they are responsible for taking care of the things that belong to them.

[Thalia the Muse]

A couple of ideas:

1) I wouldn't trash all his stuff, because that does seem harsh to me. But a good consequence for outright refusing to clean when asked is that Mom and Dad clean for you -- and anything they pick up goes right into a basket that then gets locked in the basement or garage or whatever and you have to earn your toys back. If I pick it up, I choose where to put it, and it's not going to be somewhere where you can get it ...

2) I think six is more than old enough to clean up his own room, but it can be really overwhelming for a kid to do by himself, especially if the room's trashed. If you set a kitchen timer for five minutes every single evening and pick up like crazy during that five minutes, it will never get out of hand and overwhelming. And the timer thing can make it more like a game and less of a drag to do. And I stay with my five-year-old when she cleans and help direct, help put things away. I can't just leave her to do it by herself; that way lies disaster ...

I'm not saying that this makes it easy or drama-free, but it does seem to help.

[LynnS6]

How about 4 bins (I'm in the middle of office cleaning with a colleague and according to her, this is a tried and true Home and Garden Channel cleaning technique )

Bin 1: -- Things I DEFINITELY want to keep
Bin 2: -- Things I definitely am OK with giving away
Bin 3: -- Things I need to think about
Bin 4: -- Stuff that gets left out/not cleaned up

Bin 2 gets taken to the Goodwill or where ever you donate. Bin 1 stuff gets arranged in the room. Bin 3 gets stored in the garage/basement and if he doesn't ask for/think about them for 3 months, they go to Goodwill. (I say 3 months because I know that as season's change, my 5 year old's play changes. He has a ton of trains, but rarely plays with them in the summer - he's busy outside. But he spends a LOT of time with them in the winter.)

If he leaves stuff out where YOU fall over them, then I would put them into "Bin 4" -- that's in storage too. If he wants those things back, he needs to make room for them by either cleaning up or putting some stuff into Bin 2 or 3. It's not punishment, it's not even earning them back, it's just that he needs to make room for them. If he leaves stuff out and it's not in YOUR way, then hey, it's his problem and I wouldn't say or do anything.

[LaLaLuna]

Thanks, many many thanks for all the ideas! Here's another piece as to why I was so upset with him; my wedding ring had disappeared and I knew he had something to do with it (magpie tendencies). He swore up and down that he didn't but you know that mom intuition... I knew he had helped himself after I had taken it off (my hands sometimes swell in hot weather) and stashed it somewhere. I was really overwhelmed by the thought of going through his room and realized that he could have easily stashed it away and then never be able to find it again, hence the realization that he simply has too much stuff.

DH and I spent two afternoons while DS was at day camp going through everything, EVERYTHING in his room. Turned out every pocket, emptied every box, drawer, bag, turned the mattress, etc. We took out an entire hefty bag of trash. We purged out all the truly nonsense toys, like the plastic BK crap granma gets him, the enormous amount of junk he got at the neighbor's garage sale (NOT cute that she just gave him whatever he asked for: ) and little plastic trinkets from birthday parties. That was one large box full. He voluntarily got rid of another large box full of things he's not interested in anymore. He still has a staggering amount of stuff but at least you can see the floor of his room now. My next project is to go through clothes and get rid of everything that is less than priss; between handmedowns from his brother and from my best friend's son, he has way too many clothes. I'm taking the bar out of his closet. I"m going to do a stealth purge and do as many of you suggested, just put things away for a while to re-appear them when they've been forgotten about.

I love the idea of a 5 minute clean every night; we may not be able to do it EVERY night because the nights I work I pretty much just get home in time for bed time and after the kids are asleep so am I; just not a lot of energy to spare and I'd rather just hoard it for reading stories and having snuggles those nights... but even 3x a week would be better than it is now. He *does* sometimes clean his room if I can sort of challenge him into doing it but mostly he just resists and resists and resists. Even his kindergarten teacher commented on his last evaluation that he would rather use his wits to get out of clean-up time than to participate. This is such a potentially big power struggle between us; I'd rather side step it and get him to see the value of doing it for HIS sake. I like the idea of talking about respecting our home.

So how do you all furnish your kids room to make it work for them? Right now he has one large built-in bookshelf; I put plastic tubs on the bottom two shelves for all the misc. and then a couple shelves of books and then the top shelves are a little under-utilized as he can't reach them. He has a dresser and a low table that he had a doll house on (it's put away now) that I'm thinking of taking out as it just seems to be a clutter catcher. He has one small desk-like table that he stashes "treasures" in the drawer of but otherwise doesn't use. What kind of furniture/storage works for kids?

[mommy68]

My oldest wasn't too good at cleaning his room at age 6 and I still did pretty much of it for him.

What would bother me is the fact that your child removes the rod and clothes from his closet!! I would definitely make him help me clean it up. My youngest is 4 and does this at times but it's totally expected at her age although I do discipline her and have her hand me each item as I hang it back up. He needs to atleast clean up messes that shouldn't be made like his rod/clothing from the closet : so he is taught how much of a pain it is to have to clean it back up.