How do you get your eight year old to clean their room?

Question

if you do not have an eight year old. Do you have any ideas?

Answer 1

Well I started EARLY with mine. My son is only 4 and already knows he HAS TO clean up his room before bed or at LEAST when he wakes up first thing in the morning EVERY DAY!!

He learned his lesson when we kept asking him OVER AND OVER to pick up his toys (its not hard... we have like 5 HUGE toy bins and all he has to do is throw them all in there!). When he didnt pick them up and Daddy one day stepped on a toy that made his foot bleed... Daddy simply got a trashbag and without another word put ALL of his toys that were on the floor in it and took it down to the garage!

My poor son didnt have ANY TOYS AT ALL for 2 weeks!! Then gradually we started giving them back. Now he knows that whatever toys are left out when he goes to bed will NOT be there in the morning when he wakes up because before WE go to bed we put them in that trusty trashbag and take them to the garage where they stay for 2 weeks!!

Needless to say... my son MAKES SURE to pick up his toys... ESPECIALLY his favorite ones!!

My 2 yr old daughter is even expected to "help" clean. Before SHE goes to bed, we take a small wagon (that she pulls) and go around the whole house finding her toys and putting them in the wagon. Then we go to her room and dump them all in her toybox! She even gets the wagon ON HER OWN now and grabs my hand. Its like a GAME to her! That in itself is a BLESSING to me!!

Plus its teaching them BOTH responsibility and how to be a PART of the family at an EARLY age!!

I also have a 10 yr old step son and its more difficult w/ him since he doesnt live w/ us and HIS mom doesnt expect ANYTHING out of him. Its a wonder that he knows how to tie his own shoes (which he didnt learn until LAST YEAR!!) He also doesnt even KNOW where the dishes are in his own house b/c he NEVER has to do ANYTHING for himself!! uugghh! Talk about a differance in parenting styles!!

But we still EXPECT him to do HIS share also! We use more of a punishment/reward thing with him. If he DOESNT pick up his toys then he cant play video games the next day. If he DOES without us asking then he gets to go to a movie w/ Daddy the next day! It seems to work!

Good luck w/ your son!! :) Hope that helped!

Answer 2

I have a 7 and 9 year old and went through this same thing. It was always a fight to get them to clean it up or at least get it where could see the floor. I went to Wal_Mart and got the big totes and storage bins and made them work with me while we went through and cleaned it up and organized everything when we were done I told them that if they kept it clean they would get $2 a week and if they didn't I would clean it and nothing would be in there. Each evening I reminded them after supper that it was almost room check then an hour later I went in and checked. I didn't expect it to be perfect because of their ages but if I found it in total disray then whatever I saw in the floor out of toy totes went into a trash bag and outside in the container. After a few times of getting their favorite toy pitched they started getting the idea and now they no mom is serious. When they do a good job I make sure to tell them they did. Once a week we all work together to get the bed changed, dusting and all of that.

Answer 3

Well instead of yelling for them to do it and putting them in time out, etc.... You could sing a song they like (ie: cleanup song) or play it on the radio..and tell the 8 yr old you need to clean your room so we can go out and ___ today. I will hellp you so it gets done faster. Then help the child clean. This will encourage and help the child learn. Also, let them know the benefits of having a clean room and why a messy room is not good. You could hide a favorite toy and say well if your room was clean we wouldnt have this problem..... Things like that.... Just do not let the child out to play until the job is done! Good luck to u!

Answer 4

The first time I helped by showing her that everything has to have a place. I explained to her how much easier it is to keep her room clean once it was clean. I explained that if at the end of each day she puts away anything she has forgotten to put away when she was done using it, then at the end of the week when it was time to do the official cleaning (for us that is Saturday morning after breakfast) the job would be a lot quicker, easier and therefore no big deal. I had to keep on her for about two weeks to be sure she was keeping up but by the end of the second week she was on board and not near as unhappy as she had been when I'd say its time to clean your room.

Answer 5

I don't agree w/ the reward system if he has been refusing to clean his room after being asked several times. At this point, I would start taking priviledges away. This has become an issue of disrespect by not listening to mom!
Once he cleans his room this time, you can come up with a plan for him to keep his room clean and in return a weekly allowance.

Answer 6

set up color coded boxes with what goes where for example art supplies red,electronic games blue,stuffed animals yellow,and so on. you could even put a sticker with the color of the box it goes in on your child's toys.
clean the room the first time and then take a picture about four pictures one of every wall so your child knows what clean looks like and put them up on each wall then make it a game by saying lets see how fast you can make your room look like the pictures then you can go outside and play.
and give them an award once a month if they clean it. at the end of the week if their room is clean and looks like the pictures give them a sticker on a chart and if they have a certain amount of stickers then they get a reward like an ice cream or a trip to an arcade or somthing small like candy it depends on what your child likes.
eight is a great age to start saying you have to clean your room that is when my mom started to much younger is a waste of breath and to much older is spoiling them.Good Luck!

Answer 7

There are a few reasons as to why your child is not cleaning his/her room. They may have a problem with authority, or, if you see that they are hyper-active, they may have a food allergy. Yes, hyper-activity is a result of an allergy to certain foods.

When children disobey, they should be punished in some form. Many parents choose to take the "easy way out" and don't punish them. This can cause EXTREME problems later in life. Children who have problems with authority generally end up in prison. Police are authority figures, and if children are brought up being taught that defying authority is okay... Well, that's why they end up in prison with life sentences. I'm sure the parents regret not bringing their child up in a wholesome manner.

Now, the food allergies. Many children are put on expensive ADD or ADHD medications each year, while the real problem remains--their diet. Before making any assumptions, try cutting back on your child's daily sugar intake. Maybe make a week of completly sugar-free foods. Seeing that it is Summer, you can monitor every meal and snack in a note-book or organizer. Be careful though! Many products contain "high fructose corn syrup," which is VERY similar to sugar. Also, foods with dyes and honey can cause the hyperactivity. So don't be fooled! During the days that you expirement on your child's diet, be cautious that you don't accidentally give your child sugar in a different form! If sugar is NOT the problem, continue to monitor the diet with the foods that he/she normally eats. When your child begins to misbehave, you can look back through the recent meals and do a little bit of detective work to find the culprit.

While a rewards program may work for the short term, in the long run, it will only create problems. A rewards program teaches a child to listen and obey ONLY when he/she knows that they will be getting something out of it. Later, when you ask them to do a chore, such as cleaning their room, they will defy you until you agree to their terms and conditions... No, a rewards program is not the way to go.

Make SURE that your child realizes that he does not have the right to tell you "no" when you ask him to do something! This habit could become VERY dangerous. One of my family's friends had a boy around the age of seven. Thankfully, the mother made sure that he knew that he shouldn't disobey. One day, they were outside playing in their yard. The mother quickly yelled for her child to come to her, and so he ran as fast as he could to her. She then pointed out the snake that had been near him ready to strike! You can see why this is important.

I hope that you will take these measures, not only to get your child to clean his room, but also to protect him as he or she gets older.

Answer 8

I made that as a qualifier for obtaining allowance. Room dirty = no cash. It's a basic obligation in our house.

And once I got so fed up I went in there with a Hefty bag and "cleaned". That was quite a good motivation as well. My thought is that at 8, they know better. They know how to hang up their clothes and put things back in their place. So I don't do the reward charts/stickers/bribes for cleaning thr room anymore.

Answer 9

i have the sticker program for my niece. she has adhd so the incentive has worked really well. the stickers are worth 25 cents each, or 50 cents for a really good job. she can earn them for being ready for school on time, having her homework done, completing chores, or doing really well in school that day (she gets daily report cards from her teacher). so once she has earned her stickers i place them on a bright and cheery monthly calender that i created with bitmap on the corresponding day (she can get more than 1 per day). the calender is placed on the fridge so that she can see her progress and count the mula :) at the end of the month i have her count up the total (a math exercise unbeknown to her) and she cashes out. she can spend it on anything she wants or she can save it. don't ever take away stickers for bad behavior though, it destroys the integrity of the program. good luck!

Answer 10

I have and 8 year old. To make him clean his room, I ask him the first time, if he does not do it or shoves everything under the bed/ in the closets, I pull EVERYTHING out, dresser drawers, out from under bed, shelves, closets, and dump it in the middle of the floor and let him know that he can stay there for as long as it takes to clean up the room and maybe next time he'll do it right and not have so much to do.

Answer 11

i dont have a kid but i babysat so many times (yeah i know its not the same) but what i usually do that works real well maybe 90% of the time is tell them firmly to clean their room. if they deny (which they will) simply tell them to sit in the middle of the living room with no tv on no books or toys nearby until they clean their room. oh and dont give them anything, no food no drinks...nothin. in like five minutes they whine a little and then they'll go clean it lol. .. . .yeah i'll be a pretty cool mom someday . if that doesnt work then im sorry lol..