Should you clean your kid’s messy room?

After ranting and raving for years, (yes, years), I finally just started shutting my kids' bedroom doors and pretending the mess wasn't there.

BY BECKY LYNN

Jun 17, 2013, 12:00 PM Updated: 12:00 pm

Follow on Google News

After ranting and raving for years, (yes, years), I finally just started shutting my kids’ bedroom doors and pretending the mess wasn’t there.

Then, I offered to “assist” in the clean-up. They loved their nice clean rooms when it was done, but it wasn’t long until the Battle of Clutterville began anew. It made me a nervous wreck.

“If you don’t care, I don’t care. I can’t be the only one to care,” was my mantra. But it just wasn’t working.

Finally, I just quit going upstairs. Don’t get the idea that I’m Ms. Polly Perfect when it comes to keeping the house straightened up. I’m busy just like all of us are, and yes, things fall by the wayside but as I point out to my kids, “Eventually I will get to it! And it won’t be this time next year!”

Does any of this ring a bell with you? Surely it can’t be just me!

I’m absolutely certain it’s not just me! Just Google “messy bedrooms” and you’re bombarded by websites dedicated to the why and the how of getting teens to clean up their domain. In fact, The New York Times ran a contest for readers to submit pictures of their kids messy bedrooms (I think it was so people could feel better about their own plight!)

I gotta tell you, some of them were just nasty — not just messy, but dirty-dirty. Others I just shook my head and thought, “If that’s as bad as it gets then consider yourself lucky.”

In one picture, I could actually still see the floor so I don’t think that mom had anything to complain about! And the remedy for all? Just shut the door.

So the question is, should you eventually intervene and clean your kids messy room? Dr. Tanya Altmann, a pediatrician who wrote “Mommy Calls” and “The Wonder Years,” tells Web MD that it’s unlikely to cause any health hazards, unless you can actually smell your kid’s room down the hall! In that case, mold, insects and bacteria could be growing and that needs to be taken care of.

Texas psychologist Carl Pickhardt tells Psychology Today that the messy room is part of growing up, a result of too much change all at once for adolescents. They just can’t keep up, even if they want to. Then, when Mom and Dad start in on them about the clean up, they dig in their heels.

But even though Pickhardt said it’s natural, he said we shouldn’t let it slide. He said, in order to help teens keep at bay the chaos that is overtaking them as they grow up, we need to insist they clean up their rooms and we have to supervise it over and over. Apparently its good for their mental well-being and for yours!

And another thing: Pickhardt said if we don’t stay on top of it, the mess will eventually spill out into the rest of the house. Oh, it already has!