13 year old's mess is taking over my space

I am a single mom to a thirteen year old daughter who has taken over our space. When I am gone, she hangs out in my room in my bed watching my TV. We live in a small apartment and she has pretty much messed up her own space and wants to hang out in mine. I can already lock the TV electronically but that's not enough. There are other things going on with boundaries that I am working on in therapy. I just wonder if anyone out there knows how to lock a door without screwing any thing into the wall (we rent, and the landlord does not allow it). The door has the standard lock that locks on the knob on the inside but can't really be locked or unlocked from the outside when I leave. I know that when she was little, I used to have a small screwdriver that was filed down that I could use when she locked herself in accidentally. Any ideas? Feeling Invaded

What is reasonable to expect from an 11.5 year old?

I need help on what is reasonable to expect from a pre-teen regarding the state of her bedroom. My 11 1/2 - going on 16-year old and I are headed for trouble. Up until now, I feel I've been pretty reasonable and it's worked. Both kids are responsible for their own rooms: I don't clean them. If they put dirty clothes in the basket provided, I wash them. If they leave them on their floor, they stay dirty. Then once every two weeks, in preparation for our house cleaner, they are required to neaten up. This means the floor must be clear of all debris, clothes and toys must be put away although my definition of this is loose (as in very large piles of stuff on top of the desk or dresser). In return, they get their rooms dusted, vacuumed, trash removed, and beds changed. They have always complied, albeit with a certain amount of grumbling. Little Brother, age 8, is actually good about this--enjoys sorting and organizing his stuff (into categories that mystify rational adults), labels drawers with charming notes about their contents (I know this won't last).

The 6th grader is a problem however. She routinely pulls large amounts of clothing (clean) out of her drawers, doesn't wear it, leaves it in a heap on the floor where it mingles with dirty stuff and becomes dirty by association, and then throws it in the dirty clothes basket as a means of getting rid of it--meaning I wash about twice as much stuff as I need to. She also drops books, toys, homework, etc. wherever she happens to lose interest in them, where they stay for weeks on end despite regular nagging from her father and me--her stuff is all over every room in the house. The bi-weekly clean up is becoming a major struggle. This week, she neatened up as required at the last possible moment, despite plenty of gentle reminders, etc. early in the week; she complained, cried, pled for relief, and ended up angry, exasperated, and put-upon. Then the next morning, after she had headed out for her camp, I went into her room and found that in the space of about 8 hours, during most of which she had been sleeping, it had turned right back into the disaster it had been previously. In a fury, I dumped everything of hers found laying about the house (after she had supposedly done her picking up) and everything on her floor into a clothes basket (which was overflowing by the time I was done), put it in the middle of her room, and told her she gets no privileges of any kind (friends over, TV, phone) until the basket is empty. Not a productive interchange. What should I do? I know this is just the beginning of a long, difficult phase and that I should pick my battles. But her behavior affects everyone else in the household and it seems so unnecessary. I don't know whether to make her clean up more often, so it doesn't become such a chore, or to let it go entirely. I know parents who just shut the door to their kids' rooms when they turn 12 or so and let them molder for 6 or 7 years. But it infuriates me to have to do that -- a little bit of order in the chaotic life of working parents is important. I look to my home to provide a little bit of serenity--at least once every two weeks, for the first 12 hours after the housecleaner leaves. HELP!

1. Stop washing her clothes. Teach her to wash her own clothes and let her deal with it. I did this with my daughter, and have had some success.

2. Whenever possible, ask your daughter for solutions, and give her (some) help in implementing them. I find that my daughter is much better about doing something that SHE decided to commit to. For example, we (for the 100th time) wrote up a list of daily weekly and monthly chores. This time, I asked her to make the list, then we consulted on it and I added some more chores. Then I asked her which ones she felt that she could do on which days, and she decided which ones to sign up for - amazingly, more than I would have assigned to her. So we divided things up, more or less fairly, and she is actually looking at the list almost daily. At one point I had to threaten her with not being able to do something if her chores for the week (up to that point) weren't done. And she actually went ahead and did them without too much reminding. Hopefully this will help her understand how to establish a regular schedule for self/household maintenance, and to understand that if the work doesn't get done, the playing doesn't get done either. A lot of "experts" suggest rotating the jobs on the family chore list around so that nobody gets stuck with something they don't like to do forever. probably a good idea.

3. Ask your daughter what would help her to keep her room/the house clean, and help her implement HER solutions. You could give suggestions to help her organize, but let her decide. Maybe suggest that she could use some shelves above her desk to keep her schoolbooks on, or an in/out basket for her schoolwork to keep it from getting lost. remember, she is a kid and doesnt' have the experience to know what tools and useful items might be available to her.

I think the trick is to allow them to accept responsibility. After a few weeks of no clean clothes, for example, my daughter asked if she could have some more laundry hampers for her room so that it would be easier for her to sort her dirty stuff. So I bought her 3 hampers, for light clothes, dark clothes and clothes to be bleached. She doesn't necessarily take her dirty stuff off and immediately put it into the correct hamper, but i think this is slowly nudging her in the right direction.

Regarding things left all over the place, don't give them back to her, put them away and maybe even throw them away. You have a right to live in an environment that is reasonably comfortable for you. Part of raising children is teaching them to understand that what they do has an impact on others. I think of it as teaching them to be good room-mates - remember the college room-mate you had that was such a slob even you couldn't stand it? (it was probably me!)

I think as much as possible, make the consequence a logical result of the situation. Loss of possesions left laying around, either temporary or permanent, makes a big impression! I've heard of parents who replaced a child's bike several times after she left it laying around in the front yard and it was stolen. Doesn't teach the kid anything about responsibility.

There are a lot of books out there about organizing your home, your family, etc. and some about teaching your children about responsibility. Check them out, there are some good ideas floating around out there.

Good luck, and I would love to hear any other ideas that people have!
Nancy

Allowing the kid to leave his/her room a mess except for the bi-weekly cleaning might be your best option if you insist that things not be left lying around the rest of the house. This works somewhat: at the very least, it gives you the option of having the rest of the house reasonably tidy, and you don't have to look at her stuff. With my son, things of his I find lying around I put on his bed. When he can't find the precious object he's looking for, I remind him where I put it and remind him that if it's not on his bed, I no longer know where it is and he'll either have to find it himself or do without it. Of course, he wants to put "special" things somewhere else (on the dining room table, etc, etc.) so that he can find them, but I don't give in and lo! and behold, every once in a while some portion of the room gets clean enough so the precious things can be located. Good luck!
Ellen

Here's what I do: I ignore their rooms and keep their doors shut. Every few months when important household items go missing, I force them to clean up. Usually there is a threat involved. Usually it takes several hours over a period of 2-3 days, and usually I have to stand guard the whole time, or they will try to stuff everything under the bed, or throw everything away.

Laundry: I KNOW how it is to find T-shirts still folded up in the dirty clothes basket. Isn't that the most galling thing? Lately I have been brushing them off and putting them back into the clean clothes pile. If they want laundry done, they have to either 1) get it into the bathroom hamper 2) take it downstairs to the laundry room 3) do it themselves. The younger one just wears the same thing over and over. Gross!

The cleaning lady doesn't clean their rooms at all, ever. It got to be too much stress to get them to pick up before she came, so I droppped that. I still have to nag to get the shoes and socks and backpacks and sports equipment and soda cans and video game cartridges out of the living room. I walk in from work and it's always there to greet me, I always yell for them to pick it up, they grudgingly do it, and the next day we start all over.

A friend told me that her teenage son made a good case for having a messy room. He told her that he likes chaos because order makes him uncomfortable. He knows where everything is, he said, so he would like to keep his room messy. She accepted this argument because she is also a somewhat unconventional person who feels uncomfortable around orderly people. I tried this out with my own kids for about 3 months until the day came when I needed the scissors but I was too afraid of the mess to go in and get them myself. So now we're back on the three month cycle.
Ginger

However, a kid like this must follow certain rules to get laundry and maid service. If their messiness creates extra laundry, teach them to do the laundry. And forget about vacuuming for them.

As for the rest of the house, when you are feeling good about each other, have a conference. Tell the messmaker to chose a time when all his/her things will be taken to his/her room. It is important that s/he has some power over the situation. That's why s/he should choose the time. Tell the mess maker the consequences: perhaps, you will bag the stuff up and keep it for 24 hours, even homework due the next day. What ever threat you make, you must carry out. Otherwise you have lost. So choose your threat carefully, considering all types of things that might be left laying around.

A kid should have a place to call their own and have some power over: their own room. They should not mess up other people's rooms or the public spaces of the house.
Sunsol