You’ve heard the phrase before but have you truly applied it in your home. At first you may wonder if it works and I can tell you that it does.
Wouldn’t you much rather enjoy your family time and create long-lasting memories with your children? I’m sure you don’t want your children to describe you as a nag! There was a time that I was described by my children as a nag, and let me tell you that was not pleasing to my ears. So we, decided to make some changes in our home.
Our children, yes all 5, have responsibilities in our home. We have a list posted in our kitchen with chores for each of our children. However, cleaning their rooms is not listed. That is not considered a chore, but more as a responsibility to keep their living area clean.
If you have teens, you may consider their room a hazardous waste area and believe me sometimes I cringe at the thought. Having 3 teens, I can certainly relate to unorganized rooms. However, I’ve also decided to pick my battles. Instead of the constant nagging regarding their messy rooms, I choose to close the door. I refuse to go into their rooms and quite honestly that alone, hurts their feelings. They seem to enjoy hanging out in my room, because quite simply it is clean and consists of a visible floor.
Although I choose not to battle with the children about messy rooms they still endure consequences. They understand that many of their desires will not be met until they clean their rooms. No longer must I repeat the same mantra -’Is your room clean?’ or ‘You should be ashamed of this messy room’ or ‘Do I need to go into your room with a trash bag?’, and you get the drift. We have decided to choose our battles wisely because the time will come when we need to sit down and discuss more important issues with our children.
For now, I choose to close the door. The children understand and eventually get tired of tripping over their toys and amazingly enough will clean their rooms on their own. It’s true, it happens! This also I share from experience. How about you? Have you chosen to pick your battles? Try it, it works!
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I smiled the entire time reading your message because my Mom was the total opposite, LOL! Our room had to be cleaned period – there were no options about that and definitely no closing of the doors.
I’ve noticed how my siblings are different when it comes to how they choose their battles with their children. Cleaning of the rooms have never been an issue – scary thought – especially when it comes to girls. They tend to carry that same type of behavior into college and marriage which could lead to issues with roommates and spouses.
I really smiled at the part about the trash bag – Mom did that too! ROFL!
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