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by Jessica Morgan
April 8, 2023
Is there anything more frustrating than repeating the same instructions to your children endlessly, only to receive silence in return? I could have sworn there was research suggesting that persistent reminders from moms lead to better outcomes, but that theory certainly doesn’t apply in my household. Consequently, I decided to take control of the situation myself.
For the past month, my 7-year-old and I have been engaged in an ongoing struggle regarding his bedroom. His floor is buried beneath a mountain of action figures, half-finished art projects, puzzles, unwashed socks, comic books, and who knows what else. The chaos is overwhelming, and I refuse to clean up after him — he’s old enough to tidy up his own toys and return them to their designated spots.
Are other parents facing similar challenges?
After exhausting all options, from nagging and bribing to trying to make cleaning a fun game, I was at my wit’s end. Then, one night while scrolling through social media, I stumbled upon a humorous post by a well-known dad blogger who suggested cleaning his child’s messy room with a trash bag. That was pure genius!
I dashed to the kitchen, grabbed a trash bag, and set a timer for 30 minutes. I called up the stairs to my son, “Listen up! You have 30 minutes to clean your room. If I come up there and find toys, books, and laundry still strewn across the floor, I’ll bag it all up and you won’t see it again!”
I waited, and the silence was deafening. I hollered again, “Hey! Do I need to come up there?!”
Finally, I heard him groan, “Mooommm! I don’t wanna clean my room!”
“The clock is ticking, buddy! Get a move on!”
The next 29 minutes felt like an eternity. I could hear him stomping around, and I suspected he was grumbling under his breath. But I was determined to stick to my plan; there’s no way I was going to let him continue living in a pigsty while ignoring all the chances I’d given him to manage things himself.
When the timer went off, I announced, “Alright, time’s up! Here I come!” It felt like a twisted version of hide-and-seek, where instead of searching for giggling children, I was on a mission to find items on the floor to toss into a trash bag and impart a lesson on my defiant son.
Entering his room was like stepping into a disaster zone — stuff was everywhere. In under three minutes, I filled that bag to the brim, and let me tell you, those Legos are not friendly to bare feet or plastic bags.
My child protested about the unfairness of the situation, lamenting how terrible his life was and even threatening to move in with his friend down the street. However, once the tears subsided, we had a heart-to-heart about responsibility and caring for our belongings. Together, we finished organizing his room. Although he wasn’t thrilled, he was cooperative. We cleaned the windows, vacuumed the floors, organized his dresser, and returned books to the shelves.
By the end of our efforts, we agreed that if he could keep his room tidy for two weeks without my reminders, he could reclaim the items I had bagged. When the time came, we sorted through the contents together, and he found proper homes for his cherished possessions that had been stashed away in the garage.
Though it’s only been a few weeks since this lesson, it might just be the most effective approach I’ve ever employed for teaching my son about maintaining a clean room. He now understands the consequences of allowing his space to descend into chaos, and I doubt he wants to see me at his door with a large trash bag again. Here’s hoping he keeps it up.
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Summary
The author describes a practical approach to getting her child to clean his room by using a trash bag as a consequence for not following directions. This method leads to a discussion about responsibility and results in a cooperative cleanup effort between mother and son.
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