My DD has refused to clean her room for the past month or so. In our home there is "tidy" and "clean" and they are very different. We like to do a good clean every two weeks though we don't always manage it.
She has been doing very well at helping around the house with chores but we have continued to tell her that very soon we will not accept tidy, we will expect clean.
We have been working with a CYW to develop household routines and rules for us all to live by. And one thing that we did was make a very clear list for DD to see what she needs to do for cleaning her room. We broke it down for her to make it very easy. There are even pictures and it's laminated for her too. She got this on Thursday and we told her that this weekend would be cleaning time.
Yesterday we had a few errands to run but we were home by 3pm. I let her know that she may have dinner when her room was clean. I wasn't feeling very well so I laid on the couch and ended up falling asleep. It was past 5:30pm when I was awoken by DD saying she was hungry. I repeated my earlier statement; "You may have dinner when your room is clean."
I won't bore you with the details of the next few hours. Most of it was her trying to get out of it, saying she didn't have enough energy. Saying that I don't really love her because she will die without food. I even got her on video saying she would do any chore if I would just give her something to eat. So I poured her a cup of juice (fruits and vegetables together) and gave her 5 peanuts. I knew it was enough to get her through if she bothered to clean anything. But she didn't and she ended up having a slice of bread with butter before bed last night.
My DH and I had a talk about it and agreed on a plan of action. We advised our DD that she had until we were awake tomorrow (Sunday) to clean her room or we would take every toy and most of her books out of her room and get rid of them. Storage, garbage, donation bin. Whatever we decide. I don't think she took us seriously. DH didn't wake up until 11am and DD had been awake since 6am. Plenty of time but not one thing done. DH had a rough night of sleep so he told her he was going to sleep for a bit longer so she did have a bit of time left. We tried to give her every chance possible. But as parents we must stick to our word. Say what you mean and mean what you say. Always follow through. Video by Barbara Coloroso (http://www.kidsareworthit.com/) has helped us a lot so far.
So, in about half an hour when we are doing eating we have to go in to her room and take all of her things away. And to be honest, I think this is going to be one of the hardest things I have done as a parent. I don't WANT to take her toys away. I love her and don't like to see her sad or upset. But this is a lesson I hope she will learn from.
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