Chaos in the children's room

In many teenagers' bedrooms, the picture is similar: dirty laundry on the floor, cookie crumbs in the bed, school and sports stuff wildly thrown into the corner. As children enter puberty, chaos increasingly spreads. In some families, the mess is a recurring point of contention. Can the issue be resolved peacefully? There are no patent remedies - but perhaps a few practical tips will help.

The growing disorder can have several causes. The simplest explanation is: puberty causes chaos in the body, chaos in the mind and the chaos is also reflected in the room. Perhaps your child simply doesn't care about the mess because he or she now finds other things much more important. Or maybe it is just lost in thought and doesn't even recognize the chaos. Some children are overwhelmed and need to learn how to manage the mess independently, in a structured and responsible way. However, it may also be that your pubescent child is deliberately rebelling against you with a particularly large mess. Whatever the reason, composure helps more than threats and punishment at this stage. A power struggle rarely leads to the goal.

The most important rule is: A minimum of hygiene must be. Otherwise, the following applies: Your own room is the child's kingdom. Your child is responsible for keeping it tidy, and must clean it up on his or her own. Some parents first have to learn to let go and consistently overlook this. You should not take this responsibility away from your child.

It's different with common areas like the shared bathroom, kitchen or living room. Here you can consistently demand consideration for the other family members.

Setting up common rules with your child can help avoid repetitive discussions. For example:

• Dishes are sorted into the dishwasher.
• Food scraps are not kept in the room, but disposed of in the kitchen.
• Dirty laundry goes in the laundry basket, clean laundry goes in the closet.
• Each week is cleaned up once, so that on a fixed day can be vacuumed and cleaned.

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If your child refuses to clean up or repeatedly crosses the agreed-upon boundaries, make the consequences clear. Some consequences may be: put away things that are in the way for a while. Lost items will not be replaced. Jeans, T-shirts and socks lying randomly on the floor in the child's room will not be washed unless your child puts them in the laundry basket. At the latest when the favorite shirt is not washed, there will probably be an outcry.

The good news for all long-suffering parents is: this phase also passes and some parents are amazed at how tidy the room suddenly is when a boyfriend or girlfriend comes to visit for the first time.