Calm Parenting Podcast - 5 Ways to Get Your Kids to Clean Up Messes (Part II)

Episode Date: December 6, 2023

5 Ways to Get Your Kids to Clean Up Messes (Part II) How can you get your kids to be more responsible for themselves? How can you get them to clean up their messes? How can you do this without ruining your relationship or constantly resorting to consequences? Kirk shares five different ways to get your kids to be responsible for themselves. You can apply this to different areas of their lives. Learn more at CelebrateCalm.com. Our Christmas Clearance Sale continues this week! Take advantage of the Lowest Prices of the Year at https://celebratecalm.com/christmas-clearance Questions? Need help deciding on the best tools for your family? Email [e-mail] and Casey will help you personally! Get $15 off the perfect Christmas gift, a Skylight Digital Picture Frame, at https://www.skylightframe.com/CALM Get your kids something they will actually LOVE, use, and look forward to getting all throughout the coming year. Build your child’s confidence NOW! Visit https://crunchlabs.com/CALM and get your kids CrunchLabs today! A Revolutionary Baby Monitor is Born. Visit https://www.masimostork.com/ to learn more. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Hey moms and dads, you know that our goal is to raise curious kids who love to learn, and iXL makes that so much easier. iXL is an online learning program that enriches your homeschool curriculum from K-12. iXL encourages students to be curious and empowers them to choose how to learn. No matter your child's learning style or knowledge level, IXL has video tutorials and learning games to guide your child in the way your kids learn best while meeting them at their level. On IXL, kids can explore any topic in any grade level. They're not forced into a single learning path. Kids love IXL's positive feedback and parents love knowing specific skills that need work.

Make an impact on your child's learning. Get IXL now. Calm Parenting Podcast listeners get an exclusive 20% off an IXL membership when you sign up today at ixl.com slash kirk. Visit ixl.com slash k Kirk to get the most effective learning program out there at the best price. So you know we are very purposeful about how we manage our emotions and take care of our bodies because we only have one body and one skin. That's why we love OneSkin. Their products make it easy to keep your skin healthy while looking and feeling your best. We use the face topical supplement and love that there's no complicated routine,

no multiple step protocols, just simple scientifically validated solutions. The secret is One Skin's proprietary OS1 peptide. It's the first ingredient proven to switch off the aging cells that cause lines, wrinkles, and thinning skin. OneSkin is the world's first skin longevity company. By focusing on the cellular aspects of aging, OneSkin keeps your skin looking and acting younger for longer. Get started today with 15% off using code Kirk at OneSkin.co. That's 15% off at OneSkin.co with code K-I-R-K. After you purchase, they'll ask where you heard about them. So please support our podcast and tell them we sent you. So how can you get your kids to be more responsible for themselves? How can you get them to clean up their messes? And how can you do this without ruining your relationship or constantly

resorting to consequences that don't work? That is what we're going to discuss on today's episode of the Calm Parenting Podcast. So welcome. This is Kirk Martin, founder of Celebrate Calm. You can find us at CelebrateCalm.com. Reach out to Casey, especially for this one, as he was a hugely messy kid, but now he runs a tight ship in his own home. Kids do change. It's Casey at CelebrateCalm.com. Take advantage of the big holiday sale to finally get control of yourself and learn how to discipline your kids and teach them without all just resorting to yelling and consequences. So last time we talked about sitting in the midst of the mess until it didn't trigger you.

Have you tried that? Because that's your big win, you know, and I want you to do that. So keep working on that. But today, let's lay some foundation here, and then I'm going to walk you through different ways to get your kids to be more responsible. First off, this is normal for kids to be like that. It would be weird if all your kids cared about keeping their rooms and your home as neat and orderly as you do. Just like it would be weird if a kid was as meticulous about my lawn care, right, as I am as a father. It just doesn't work that

way. When you're a kid, you have a hundred other priorities and things you'd rather be doing than cleaning up. It just isn't a priority. And developmentally, it's just very normal. So I'm going to take you through the tough approach in a minute, but I want to address what I think is probably the elephant in the room that we haven't discussed, but that probably should have been included in a previous podcast, things for you to work on. But it's this. Control your own anxiety about your child's future. Look, if you're a good, conscientious parent who loves their child, which you are because you're listening to a parenting podcast, then you have this reasonable fear. You're anxious that if your child is a slob or disorganized as a child and you don't correct

and teach him or her properly, then they're going to grow up to be disorganized, sloppy, sloppy adults. And that will mean that you all failed to train and raise them properly. And it may mean that no one will marry them and they'll be living in your basement until they're 35. Okay, I probably took that too far, but some of you do have that fear and there is legitimate anxiety over this. I get that, but here's what I want you to know. While it may seem like a reasonable fear, it simply is not true that a messy kid grows up into a messy adult.

Now, if you're a hoarder or completely disorganized, and if you're raising them in a home in which you and your spouse are just very disorganized and there's messes everywhere of your own choosing, well, then that may happen because that's the DNA of your home. But you do have a DNA in your home. And if you and your spouse are pretty organized, your kids are gonna grow up like that. Just like if you eat healthy, one day they're going to replicate that after you.

Your DNA replicates, right? But I can assure you that kids change and they change a lot. We've worked with almost a million families. We had 1,500 kids in our home. We've followed them, tracked them as they've grown into adults, talked to their parents. And we also have our own child, Casey, whose bedroom and bathroom were disgustingly horrid when he was a kid. We actually had a saying in our home, hey, where was Casey? Oh, wherever the crumbs are, right? He somehow figured out how to make the biggest messes and not clean them up. And yes, we instituted all kinds of measures that I'm going to share, but here's what I want you to know. As an adult, Casey is completely opposite of how he was at age 7 and 10 and 14 and 16. Casey now owns his

own home. If you go to Casey's home, guess what you have to do upon entering his house? Take your shoes off. And my response is, seriously? Seriously, Casey? You're going to make me take my shoes off in your home after what you did in our home? Why? So you don't track dirt into his house. The kid who seemed to attract dirt and had a bedroom that was disorganized and unruly now has a home that is orderly and clean. Why? Because he owns it.

And if you understand the concept of ownership with strong willed kids, it will keep you from fighting them over things throughout their entire childhood. Please listen to that Enjoying Your Strong Willed Child program, How to Stop the Power Struggles. You have to understand how to give them ownership and what that means to them. It's a great, great principle. Look, he owns his home and he grew up in a home with two parents who like order and structure. So he came back to this when he got his own home. He's meticulous about the things he cares about. He does skiing and backcountry skiing and all kinds of cool. He's meticulous with his stuff. So I want you to chill with your parental anxiety and not project into the future or you will endlessly lecture your child and it

won't ever get them motivated and it'll hurt your relationship and we don't want that. So let's talk about the tough approach. There's no guarantee this is going to work but it's worth a shot. Hey kids, your room can be a mess but the living room, the kitchen and stairs, they got to be free of Legos, free of your stuff, free of clothes. If you leave your things lying on the floor in this area, it will cost you $1 per item. You're either going to have to pay me or work that off. Or I'm going to bag it up, donate it to Goodwill. Or I'm going to collect your items and hold them ransom. Now look, some kids will respond well to this.

So institute it. Just no drama. Just do it. Do what you said you were going to do. But some simply won't care. You're going to have kids who are going to be like, fine, I didn't really want those Legos anymore anyway. And you're like, urgh. So we had a rule with lights left on in the house. Because when we would wake up in the morning, somehow there would be lights left on in the basement, the hallway, the bathroom, everywhere. So I started exacting a fine for each light that was left on. Did that work with Casey? Yes, to a degree. Looking back now, I think I probably would have just smiled a bit more

and just said, hey, go turn the lights off. Or I would have just done it myself. Why? Because in the grander scheme of things, that was more about my own anxiety. Well, aren't you teaching your kids good discipline? Yeah, that's a way to do it. But I also teach my kids good discipline by learning how to control myself and actually controlling my own anxiety. Because we have all those things throughout, you left the lights on, that's costing me money. It's not costing me much money. You waste way more money doing other things.

Right? But we get caught. So I want you. I'm hoping that you'll take advantage of some of my old guy wisdom. Right? Because I've been through this. And with a lot of families. And say.

Some of these things. It's just more about you're uptight. And it's your own anxiety. Because the things you were raised with. And you think., if I don't teach them how to do this, they won't learn how to be. It's not true. Focus on the right things, the big things. Now, that said, you can go hardcore, which we would do at times.

So let's say the weekend comes and the kids haven't picked up after themselves in a reasonable manner. You could begin to set this expectation and declare martial law in your home. I'm good with that. I recommend that. Just remember, when we're tough with kids, we use few words, we take decisive action, and we do not ever make it personal. We don't lecture and go on and on about ourselves and what we did as kids. We don't yell and scream. There's no drama. It's clear. And I definitely want you to be unified with your spouse on this because there is going to be whining. There will be tantrums and drama on your child's part, just not yours. So you may need to reset things in your home. And a good way

to start is this. Hey guys, I apologize for leading you to believe that I would simply clean up all your messes every day after you. I've led you to believe that by not asking you to do anything. And that was wrong of me. From now on, here are my expectations. By Saturday morning, if this is not completed, whatever you lay out, I want this completed by Saturday morning, the router will be turned off. All screens will be turned on until it's completed. No screens, no friends, no playdates, no fun until your job is completed. Let me know if you need some

clarification. Let me know if you need help with that. There's nothing wrong with that. It's completely fair. You've owned your part. You apologized for not doing it right in the past. You set out clear expectations. This is what I want accomplished. You made it reasonable.

And then you let them know, when I wake up Saturday morning, if this isn't done, hey, martial law, we don't do anything until this is done. I wake up Saturday morning, if this isn't done, hey, martial law, we don't do anything until this is done. And then when Saturday morning comes and they predictably have not completed what you asked because that's what's going to happen, you simply do what you said you were going to do and you stick to it, even through their wailing and the gnashing of teeth,

without any lectures, just matter of fact, until they begin to learn this is how you roll. And this produces trust because when I tell you something, I mean it. And I just do it. And it's a perfectly reasonable way to handle this. And I'd encourage you to do that. I also encourage you to sit in the midst of the mess so you get control of your triggers first, but then do this. Make sure your expectations

are realistic and that you're getting progress, not perfection. See, almost all discipline we handled this way worked really well. Even, matter of fact, no anger, no lectures, no drama. Be clear, do what you said you were going to do. I do like that approach and sometimes it works great. And I'd go through, if you've got it, go through the Discipline That Works program because we have a wide range of how to apply this in different situations. Now, here are two more ideas before we get to cleaning, getting your kids to clean their bedroom and bathroom. So I really like this idea. Give your kids some independence and space with this. Maybe find one area or job in which they can actually excel. See, some of your kids may actually do their own laundry. So go to the store,

let them pick out a laundry detergent with a certain fragrance that they like, or some of your kids, no fragrance at all. Put a hamper in their closet, give them ownership, like they're in college, like they're in control. See, some of your kids may like the control that this gives them. Don't be surprised though if teenagers start a load of laundry at 11 p.m. because they forgot they needed to wash their favorite clothes for something special the next day or because they have a new boyfriend or girlfriend to impress. Don't be surprised if some of your kids do a load of laundry every two weeks. Who cares? Just spray them down with Febreze.

Kind of kidding, but spray them down, right? Because look, who cares? If their clothes smell, guess who's gonna tell them about that? Their friends, and they'll learn that way. Some of your kids will do a small load of laundry every single day. Relinquish your need to lecture about wasting water or about being

smelly. Just be thankful. They're doing their own laundry even if you don't like how they do it. Now that's going to be your trigger and you need to control that and work on that. You complained all the time and now your kid, now your child actually steps up, begins doing their laundry and just walk by them and say, you know what? That shows me you're growing up. Awesome. You're not going to like the way they do it or when they do it because you and I are freaks. So let go of your control issues and start to notice they stepped up in that area. Here's another idea. If it helps you out, perhaps you could pay them for doing chores you no longer have to do. It's not

my favorite thing to do, but if it motivates them and it alleviates some work for you because now they're handling laundry in a home, well, maybe that's worth it to you and it's worth it to them. Maybe they could even do laundry for their siblings in return for their sibling doing a chore of theirs. I love that idea because that's how life works anyway. Not every person in the home has to do every single chore. It's called division of labor. We do different things. So maybe you have a child who's really into doing laundry and he or she teams up and talks to the sibling and says, hey, I'll do your laundry if you do X. That's awesome. And you may even do this. Again, not recommended, but it's a reasonable option.

Hey, son or daughter, you're really good at this. If you take care of all the laundry in the home, I'll clean your bathroom for you. You may find that this works for you. And if you have a child who absolutely loves cleaning and organizing, awesome. Let them do it. So maybe you pay that child or that child charges the other sibling for their services. Take advantage of it. It's how the adult world works with people specializing in different areas and trading services for money. I love that idea in your home. Find what works because you

know we love the idea. Do what works in your home. Not every child has to do each specific thing. It's awesome. Now with that said, I really want you to come alongside and teach and show your kids how to do things and you may have to add this extra step for some kids. This is a gray area and it's a judgment call on your part. Some kids, especially little kids, will need you to come alongside and help them as they do it. I guarantee you that most kids under the age of seven are not going to pick up all their Legos by themselves.

So you're gonna put on music and you're gonna find yourself down on your hands and knees doing most of the picking up. But that's also modeling for them. So just do that with a smile and don't be resentful about it. Now, let's apply this to the messy bedroom. So here's the question. What about my child's bedroom? It's a disaster. Or if you're in Long Island, it's a disaster. What am I doing with my daughter? She's got, I just like doing that. If they can't learn how to clean their bedroom, how will they ever be organized and be successful in life? I understand. I said that same thing to myself a million times. Control your own anxiety and don't project into the

future. There's a reason there's a bedroom door so you don't have to walk by and see it. So close the door and live your life in peace and let them have their messy bedroom and own it. You could live with it like that. That's what we ultimately did in many ways. You can always say, I will come in and read to you at night or talk to you if I've got a clear path. Set that boundary. Hey, you don't have to have it talk to you if I've got a clear path. Set that boundary. Hey, you don't have to have it all completely clean, but I need a clear path to get from the door to your bed. That said, how can we help our kids with their rooms?

So I'm working with this good family, doing phone consultations. And that, it was funny because we had initial consultation. The mom kept emailing like, when are we going to talk about cleaning the bedroom? I was like, okay, I can hear your anxiety. Let's talk tomorrow. So I asked a few questions and we determined that this was a, their daughter was a very creative girl. If you get a very creative person, they're often not naturally organized either inside or outside. It's partly what leads to the creativity, right? Because if you're very, very organized and inside, you're very precise with everything. Well, that's awesome for some jobs and getting some things done. It makes you're going to be very organized. But a lot of people

who are kind of very tightly wired and wound like that, well, you're not great at being creative because you don't want to color outside the lines. We need both kinds of people. So my hunch is, here's what happens. Very quickly, this creative girl's room becomes a mess. And then by that time, she doesn't even know where to begin, so she just gives up. It's like your kid's doing homework. If there's too many problems on a page, it's just too much and it gets overwhelming and they shut down. It's like me going into a store where there's a ton of clutter. I just can't do it. I don't like it. It's overwhelming. So dad, in this case, said something that all dads would say, which is, hey, honey, if you just took three minutes every day to clean, it would stay clean. And dad's very correct. But her history says she will not take

that three minutes every day. And I know that feeling of being overwhelmed. So here's my advice. Look, some of this is learning how your kids are wired and resetting some expectations and knowing what works. And it's perfectly reasonable. Honey, if you took three minutes, but you know she's not. So let's change our attitude toward this. This isn't a moral issue. It's not a disobedience issue. It's a tools issue. It's a kid who doesn't have the tools to do this naturally well. And so, and look what, you know what just popped in my head? If our standards in life were like, say with your kids of like, hey, I want you to be really creative. Well, this child would excel in that area. And you'd be like, man, you are so creative.

And then your child who's kind of tidy and organized, you'd be like, why aren't you creative? Why aren't you creative? And they're like, because I'm not made that way. I know, but you need to be creative in life. I really want you to be creative. And if you change your standards around, you'd be getting on the clean, organized one who colors within the lines, who doesn't know how to be creative because that's what you are valuing at that moment. So change your attitude. There's just one aspect of their life.

And let's go for a tidy home, a tidy room, not immaculate, not perfect, kind of like an organized mess, if that makes sense. Because some of us live quite happily with that tidy but somewhat disorganized pile, right? Like you may have an office in your home. Everything's not perfectly lined up, but you've got piles for things, and you know what's in each pile. So it's tidy. You know where things are, and I want a reasonable goal for a child like this. So you might provide baskets, large baskets that she can just throw things into. Maybe there's a basket for dark clothes, one for light clothes, a basket for anything with paper, books, papers, bark from a tree. Because some of your kids collect weird things.

They collect acorns. So there's a basket for acorns and weird little things that they collect. A basket for personal items that are supposed to be stored in the drawer in the bathroom, but somehow end up on the floor, right? Little hair ties and a comb and a brush and all those irritating things. You may even put masking tape on the floor with four quadrants in that room. And each quadrant holds a different kind of item. Make it easy and let's go in. Just roll with me on this. Let's go in and happily do a good,

not perfect job, organizing her room and cleaning one day. And yeah, that means you're actually doing it because I want a good baseline of what you want. What does this look like? Again, we're not going after Martha Stewart living. You get that when your kids are grown and gone. And then by then you'll have learned that it's not really that important, but if you want to do it, but we're going to go in and we're going to do a good job and have her room organized, tidy. So there is a sense of order in there That's the baseline now. This is a cool idea take a picture of her room Before and after you organize it and then you can hang those pictures on her wall Because it's likely that a creative person these kids are very visual and sometimes these visuals can be extremely helpful

Because she can look at it as a guide because just saying clean up your room, I don't know what that means. What does that even look like? But now she'll know what an organized room looks like. Here's another idea. Make a video. You can even make a YouTube video or a TikTok video of how to tidy up. You may even get your child or one of your other kids who's neat to make a YouTube video of how I keep my room clean. And she could probably end up getting a lot of views and a lot of parents paying for that. Here's how I do it.

You could actually make the video with five steps and five minutes to keep it like that. And then your daughter or son in this situation, whatever it is, could actually make the video with five steps and five minutes to keep it like that. And then your daughter or son in this situation, whatever it is, could actually watch the video because your kids are very into YouTube and TikTok videos at times of how to do that. You set music to it. It could actually be kind of a cool thing. It would be a fun way to show and teach her how to clean her room because discipline means to teach, to show. And I love that idea of five steps in five minutes. I love this idea. Turn it into something you bond over. Look, you have choices here. You can spend 18 years of your child's life just fighting them over everything and you'll be right about most of these things. I'm right about this. They need to learn how to do it. And you'll ruin your relationship. But instead of expecting her to do this on her own for three minutes every day, which you know she's not going to do, dad chooses to

turn what usually irritates him into bonding time. So he walks in and he plays some music she loves and when he walks into a room he knows this most songs are about three to four minutes long so dad asked hey we're gonna do a one song clean or a two song or today and then he makes it fun and he comes alongside of her and he does it with her and that first he's doing it mostly for her but he's doing it with her. And at first he's doing it mostly for her, but he's doing it with her. And at the end, he ends up giving his daughter a hug and leaves the room. Watch, this is very, because for many of you, you're leaving the room, you walk in the room, hands on your hips, I expect this room to be clean. And you're leaving the room in a huff. And now you're separated over your child, over a

bedroom, over something that just irritates you, that is not a moral issue. That is not a life issue, right? It's not life altering. But now instead, dad leaves after giving his daughter a hug and he had fun listening to some music that he hates probably for six minutes, but he leaves and now he's got that connection with his daughter. And I can tell you one day this will be a distant memory. And if you don't do it this way, you're going to regret hurting your relationship over things that don't matter. I love those ideas. Here's one more. This is really kind of cool. It's actually two. Put a dust buster in your child's bedroom. Here's why. The dust buster is

small. It's easy to use quickly. You're reducing the resistance to cleaning and doing things. It's right there. Look, there's no way a kid's going to go downstairs and drag a big vacuum up to their room, plug it in. Look, they don't even have to plug the dust buster in. It's free and clear. They do it and they clean some things up. It makes it more likely to use it. And here's the related idea. Place a cleaning caddy underneath their bathroom sink. This is a really important insight. With kids and adults like me who are impulsive, we've got symptoms associated with ADD. It's super helpful to have everything needed right there. Here's my experience as a grown adult. So

I'm responsible for some of the cleaning in our home. There are times when the mood just hits me to clean the bathroom and I want to do it then, right then. I want to do it later. I want to do it right now because that feeling and desire can fade pretty quickly with me. Years ago what would happen is I would then look under the vanity for the cleaning supplies. But if they weren't there, and then I had to scavenge all over the house for paper towels and different kinds of cleaners and sponges and gloves, I just wouldn't do it.

So I learned to reduce the resistance to doing these things by creating a cleaning caddy. So everything in every bathroom in our home has this. There's paper towels, there's a sponge, there's different kinds of cleaners. I'm all ready. So when that moment hits, I just reach for it and I do it. Try that with your kids.

It's really important. I want you also to praise for progress because I hope one day that your child actually invites you to look at their bedroom or bathroom after they've cleaned, after they've organized. And I hope they're beaming with a little bit of pride. Now, a lot of your kids are not going to do that, but they may. And if they do, please bite your tongue and please do not point out what they missed, how they could have done it better. At least not the first couple times. Make a big deal out of it, even if you are cringing inside.

Because this is progress, and this should be celebrated. And over time, over time, you can say something like this. Hey, you know what? I just learned this one little tip a couple years ago. If you do X, it will help you with this. And then move on to something else. Because there's nothing more deflating than being excited about doing something new and then having someone rain on your parade. So none of this, hey, nice job, but you could make this even more clean. Don't do that. It'll kill the moment. And by the way, it will kill your relationship. Because what

your kids know is, I can never please my mom or dad. So why even bother? So I want you to walk alongside, right? Go through, make some notes on this. Do the hard approach. I love declaring martial law in my home. Just doing it in a non-personal way. Not angry, not upset. Just let you know this is how I roll. And also walk alongside. Show them how to do it. Make that video. See, you're making it fun. We're teaching now. We're building a relationship. We're praising for progress. And along the way, you're also working on yourself. This is hugely important. So these triggers, no matter what they are, don't trigger you anymore. We want small wins. We want progress because we're building new skills for some of your kids, and we're building new skills for you.

So work on this stuff. Go through the different programs. They come right on the app. Your kids can listen. Your parents can listen. Your spouse can listen on their own phone. You will break generational patterns. Take advantage of the holiday sale.

If you need help, reach out to Casey at Celebrate Calm. We will help you with this. But I can't wait to hear from some of you that you did these things and you're like, hey, that really worked. That's what we're after. So thank you for listening. Thanks for sharing this with your friends.

Love you all. Take care. Bye-bye.