One of the challenges parents face when raising teenagers is getting their teens to keep their rooms clean. Most teenagers’ rooms are typically in disarray (and most especially the boys), with clothes strewn across the floor, beds unmade and all kinds of rubbish under the bed. Some of these rooms do not get swept for days on end and might never be mopped the whole year which thereby makes it become infested with cockroaches and other insects and rodents. This sort of dirtiness is surely unhealthy for teenagers because it is one of the reasons why some of them fall sick every now and then. Now if you are a parent reading this and wondering how you could possibly help your teens to learn to organize their rooms, please do not worry anymore because I have tips for you. Read below please…
FIRST OF ALL, TALK AND EMPHASIZE ON THE IMPORTANCE OF CLEANLINESS: understandably, this is one thing parents do all the time. But then you never really can get tired of talking about it. Therefore, talk and emphasize the importance of keeping the room clean, the benefits of keeping the room clean and the negative things that could happen when the room gets dirty. Emphasize this every day until the teenager gets tired of hearing it and makes effort to keep the room clean so you don’t have to give the “annoying” lecture on cleanliness.
MAKE A TIMETABLE FOR CLEANING AND ENFORCE IT: Parents should make it compulsory for teenagers to sweep their rooms and make their beds every morning before living the house for school. And on Saturdays, let it a rule that their rooms must be thoroughly swept, scrubbed and mopped with the bed sheets laundered along with the dirty clothes. Ensure to enforce this rule too and watch it become norm overtime. One of the problems with dirty teenagers is that their parents never bother to instill home-keeping skills in them. You cannot afford to do that anymore.
LET THEM KNOW IT IS THEIR JOB TO KEEP THEIR ROOMS CLEAN: Teens must be made to understand that they are not doing their parents any favours by de-cluttering their rooms, organizing their closets, doing their laundry and generally ensuring that where they sleep and wake up every day is clean. It is their job to do that for themselves and it is about time they start to do it graciously. To this end therefore, you do not have to entice them with gifts before they can do it. They just have to find ways to obey you because you are their parents and you require them to do it as a means of taking care of themselves.
