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No one likes to nag their kids to keep their room clean, but younger children, especially those with ADD or ADHD, often struggle to maintain a clean room. Often these kids need extra incentives and motivators like a chore chart or rewards to get the job done.
Older kids and teens with ADHD also find it challenging to maintain a clean space; however, they may be motivated by the appearance of their room, especially if they like to have friends over!
The endless cycle of fighting and struggling to have your kids clean their room is exhausting! So, if you need help to motivate your child to clean their room or clean up messes from common areas, we have some great tips to make clean-up time more rewarding for everyone!
The article also examines why your child might struggle to complete chores around the house and what you can do to help! So, read on for great ideas to motivate your kids to clean their rooms!
Why Is It So Hard for My Child to Keep Their Room Clean?
Kids, like adults, are often motivated by rewards for their work. While we may not see our paycheck as a reward for a week of hard work, that's precisely what it is. Very few of us would go to work every day for free! Kids, especially those with ADHD or who seem difficult to motivate, may need rewards to incite their motivation.
As parents, we don't typically enjoy cleaning a mess any more than our kids, but through our life experiences have learned the importance of responsibility and maintaining a clean home. So if your child refuses to clean up or stops halfway through the cleaning process, stop and think about their frame of mind.
First, reflect on any barriers preventing your child from cleaning. For example, maybe there may be too many distractions, or the mess is so big it overwhelms your child. Or, perhaps your child sees no benefit in cleaning up a messy room because the mess isn't bothering them, and they can still find all their toys! Perhaps there are no rewards or consequences for when they don't clean.
To better understand why your children struggle to clean their room, observe, discuss and reflect on any barriers. Then brainstorm some potential rewards and consequences that will help your child focus on keeping their room clean.
Tips to Motivate Kids to Maintain a Clean Room
Cleaning is not a task most children choose to do independently. Therefore you’ll likely have to find ways to motivate and keep them motivated while cleaning. What works for one child may not work for the other, so the key is figuring out what works best to spark motivation in your kid.
Some kids respond well to verbal praise and rewards, while others love the idea of a challenge or game. Try some of the tips below to see what works best to motivate your child.
Rewards and Praise
Rewards work. They shouldn't be the be-all and end-all of motivating your child, but they definitely work to motivate children to clean and participate in other household chores.
However, for a reward to work well, it has to be something meaningful to your child and consistent. For example, consider hanging a chart on their bedroom door at eye level for younger children. Each time your child accomplishes a task on the chart, they earn a sticker or a mark until they reach the prize.
Prizes should start small. There should also be increased time between each reward. A sample reward chart might go like this:
- Complete three tasks for prize one
- Complete five (additional) tasks for prize two
- Complete eight (additional) tasks for prize three
- Complete ten (additional tasks for prize four), and so on.
The goal is that your child will learn responsibility over time and needs fewer incentives.
One way to make the chart system more fun is to make it like a BINGO card, allowing your child to choose which items they complete. You can fill in whatever options best fit your needs and goals using a blank template.
Older children who can keep their rooms clean will appreciate a weekly allowance for keeping them neat and for other chores.
In addition to offering rewards, heap praise onto your kids for their effort and a job well done! Offering praise builds your child's self-esteem and motivates them to continue cleaning. Yes, children love physical rewards, but they love verbal rewards from their parents even more!
When offering praise, make it specific and point out what they did that you liked or appreciated.
Ideas for specific praise:
- I love how you put all your stuffed animals into the basket; that looks really nice!
- Wow, you picked up all the clothes off your floor; there's so much more space to play now.
- You put all your LEGOS away! So now we can walk across the carpet without stepping on any; thank you!
How Joon Can Help
Kids with ADHD are easily distracted and struggle to manage their time effectively. Joon is designed to promote independence, increase focus, and improve task completion through gamification, making cleaning fun and interactive!
Joon encourages children with ADHD by motivating them to focus on the activity at hand and rewarding task completion. This process builds healthy habits. Joon mitigates ADHD symptoms by encouraging positive behavior when completing chores like cleaning their rooms! Claim your 7-day free trial today.
Appropriate consequences
Children need consequences. Some parents think the word consequence is a bad word, but a consequence is a natural response to your child's behavior and choices. Consequences motivate kids and adults to behave responsibly. They are tools to teach until your child develops intrinsic motivation to make the right choices.
Keep them related to the task and, when possible, natural.
Appropriate consequences might include:
- If they don't clean up their toys, they lose some until they can maintain a clean room.
- If they don't get ready for bed on time, there is only one story instead of two.
- If they don’t put their laundry in the hamper, their favorite outfit won’t be clean for school.
Teaching your child a sense of cause and effect for their actions while young will make a massive difference as they approach their teen years!
Offer your help
If your child's room is a complete mess, offering to help your child clean is OK. However, only take on part of the job yourself and consider what age-appropriate things your children can do to help clean their rooms.
A three-year-old can put toys away and help make their bed, while a seven-year-old can fold their clothes and learn to operate the vacuum.
Getting involved with the process shows your child you care and helps them build the healthy habit of maintaining a clean space.
Give specific tasks
If your kid is struggling and doesn't know where or how to begin cleaning, point out specific tasks they can do. Or start with one task at a time, “Let’s line your shoes against the wall.” Then, once that first task is completed, you can move on to a second one and then a third.
Sometimes to get kids to clean and to motivate them, it is easier to look at the smaller pieces rather than the big picture.
Be consistent
Consistency is key with all things regarding kids! And while holding firm at the moment may feel like a challenge, the benefits of consistency are well worth it!
Little ones and older kids will push back sometimes to see if they can bend the rules. And when parents are inconsistent, children learn that all they need to do to avoid chores like cleaning their room is to push until their parent's break.
Some families benefit from a weekly cleaning schedule for the whole family. So while the kids clean their rooms, mom and dad might clean the kitchen, mow the lawn, vacuum the basement, etc.
Communicate
Communication is vital to all successful relationships. And our children are no exception. If we do not communicate our expectations, needs, and wants to our children concerning cleaning their room or any other chore, how can we possibly expect them to have a sense of what they need to do?
Set clear expectations of what they're responsible for in their room and around the house. Regular family meetings are one way to ensure everyone stays involved in the communication process and provides a safe space for children to express their opinions and ideas.
Give options
Options are an excellent way to get kids to clean their rooms. Children often feel they have no power, especially younger kids, so providing options is a way to make cleaning more inviting. When presenting a child with options, provide no more than two or three choices, and ensure the options presented are realistic.
Some realistic choices are:
- You can clean up your room before or after dinner.
- You can clean up either your toys or your clothes today and the other one tomorrow.
- What would you like to put away first, your cars, blocks, or markers?
You also need to provide the consequence should they fail to follow through. And again, keep it realistic. You should only threaten to take away all their toys if they don’t clean up their room if you're willing to go and pack everything up should they fail to meet their end of the bargain.
Allow your child to suggest some choices. They may have some creative ways of cleaning you didn't think of before!
Use a timer
Using a timer to get your son or daughter to clean is a fun method to make cleaning fun. Some children are motivated by beating a timer and see it as a way to play while cleaning.
If you want to use something other than a traditional timer, many clean-up songs are available online, or you could create a cleanup playlist full of your child's favorite songs! The goal of using a timer is to make cleaning fun and to take their mind off the work at hand.
About
Dr. Carrie Jackson, PhD
