Let your kids clean their own room
If you’re spending your day at a desk, that desk reflects your mental state. In the same way, your child’s bedroom is him; it is where he physically grapples with the relationship between his things, needs and goals. As a student moves from point A to B, their brain will attempt to organise their world to make that movement easier; in a way that makes sense for their goals. A disorganised room or desk shows that minimal thought was given as to how to make the journey easier, or that a destination might not exist at all. Kids that find organisation too difficult have terribly challenging lives in school.
A lot of students struggle with organisation and planning; and for good reason: the brain’s executive functioning system remains under construction for about the first 25 years of life. But for parents to simply let children off of the hook for organizing and planning completely, when the necessity for both is well known- that’s wilful ignorance. Parents are not doing their children any favours by letting someone else clean their child’s room for them.
Disorganised students consistently say that they feel bored, unmotivated, and powerless against anything that bothers them. That's not a surprise; they don't have any say in something as straightforward as how their room looks. In simple terms: when students are cleaning their rooms, they are learning how to make friends with their future selves.
Set the bar as low as possible
If, or when, your son protests, remind him that he does not need to fix everything. Ask him to straighten up what he can for now. Reducing the responsibility of organising to whatever feels tolerable is a noble practice in and of itself. Suppose he can only deal with the pile of laundry on the floor to start. Still, he must ask himself: “Where and when would I wear those clothes?” Reflection like this results in improved judgment and decision-making, and his life becomes less complicated, even if incrementally, each day. There is not a simpler or more reliable approach to finding out how much good they can create in their worlds.
When he cleans his room, he learns that well-organised thoughts follow; they are the result of a lot of hard work, not the beginning. That is precisely how parents can help their children develop thinking and writing, and it’s why they should allow kids to clean their own rooms as part of a daily routine. When teachers include planning into their lessons, even by simply speaking about their thinking processes out loud, they are making the lives of parents at home easier. Students need the opportunity to organise and plan at home and in school; this is how parents and teachers can become ever so engaged with one another’s work, without ever meeting.
