How to get my 10 yr old aspie son to clean his room???

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I can't get my 10 yr to clean his room for anything. Somtimes I think he likes it to be messy. I've helped him so many times cleaning it up and its great for a while then it seems like in a blink of an eye is a disaster once again. We have gone through two beds in the past year 1/2 he broke the frames. So now his bed is on the floor. He doesn't have a lot of toys and I wanted to get bins to put things in but he wanted a filing cabinet that worked for a while now he doesn't put anything in them anymore. He also sneaks food & drinks (which is a not allowed) in his room then I find it I get upset........yada, yada its very frustrating. If anyone has any pointers PLEASE feel free!! !!

schedule a time every day that is for picking up his room and he doesn't "do anything" until it's done. Show him what you want cleaned.

How about giving a $1 if he can keep his room clean for the week? I used to do that for my son to encourage him to keep it clean. Now, he plays "club penguin" on the computer and it's one of his favorite pastimes. It costs $5.95 a month and I keep his account as long as he can keep his room clean. It isn't spotless and it still get messy but it is much more manageable than how it
was before - which was a COMPLETE disaster!

why do you need him to clean his room? It is not rational for you to assign him space to call his own, then dictate how you want that space to be kept. It is either his room or your room, if it is your room, then I would make that very clear. If it is his room, he should be able to keep it how he wants.

I am a person that had a bedroom like a bomb site as a child + teenager.

I used to get frozen, and not be able to work out how to tidy - what to do first. And then when I'd start I'd find things that interested me and totally distracted me from the task at hand. (For example, I'd start to rearrange my books, or catalogue my cassettes, or my fossil collection)

None of this was wilfulness. I loved my room when it was tidy, but it was such a struggle to get it that way.

My mum had OCD, but she got to the point where my room upset her all the time, so she ceased to look in it. My mess did not impact on her life any more.

What I am saying is, I think, does your son *need* your son's room to be tidy? Or do you *want* it to be tidy?

Of course I think it is better to have a tidy room, but as long as he can be respectful of shared space and not mess up the rest of the house, a messy room is not the end of the world.

If however he would like a tidy room the following may be helpful:

* a very broken down list of what to do, in order
so thats (for example)
- pick up dirty laundry
- place in laundry bin
-Pick up lego pieces
- place in lego box
- place all books on shelves
- place waste paper in recycling bin

* A weekly bribe
for example
- All laundry in laundry bin by 1pm Saturday = $1
- No rubbish on floor by 1pm Saturday = $0.50
- All books back on shelves except one being read by 1pm Saturday = $0.50

Best wishes

Robin

Neatness is something that comes more naturally to some than others. i was a very messy child...not because I wanted to be, but because I have serious problems with organization.

You might need to help him clean his room until he gets used to doing it himself and it becomes more second-nature.
Perhaps the threat of you helping him might encourage him to do a better job.

I still have troubles with messiness....I have heard some folk on the spectrum blame executive dysfunction for these troubles. I find cleaning to be overwhealming and difficult and tedious..especially when I have other things on my mind...It takes me several times longer to clean stuff than the average person who cleans stuff...

I kind of agree with the above poster about letting a kid kinda keep a room how he wants it...but learning basic organization skills..as hard-won as they might be....couldn' hurt.

eventually i just got into throwing away a lot of stuff

garabage or not

it made the room cleaner it never was good enough anyways

but i knew that it made the room cleaner.

How does he keep breaking his bed? Is he a jumper? We invested in a big, sturdy jogging trampoline for our kid. I think the company was Reboundair. It has lasted alot longer than the ones we'd get at sporting goods stores. Anyway, he has an outlet for the jumping and the bed is safe.

Sounds like my 11 yo son!! I give him one chore at a time (sometimes 2) - ie - straighten the books on the book shelf, put clothes in hamper, put clean clothes in drawers, make the bed, etc. I don't make him clean his room daily, usually once a week. I have a sign I made I put on the door - that says CLEAN YOUR ROOM!! If he doesn't - he doesn't do anything else until it's done - no tv, video games, etc.

Trouble here is that he shares a room with his younger brother who likes things rather neat - we call them Felix and Oscar (the odd couple show)

Durning the week when its a mess and no time to clean, I just shut the door!!

Here is what has sort-of worked for me with all my kids, but especially 9 y/o AS DD.

-Compartmentalize everything. They don't have access to many toys at once. They are all in boxes and bins up high on closet shelves. The kids have to exchange toys if they want something else. I allow one bin down at a time per child.

-Routine. Our rule is no dinner until rooms are straightened up and toys are put away. An hour before dinner I warn the kids to clean up before dinner, then they have to help out with dinner prep, setting table, etc.

-When it's time to de-junk and do a thorough clean, do it with them. I do this about once a month.

Same here. Just looking at a room that needs to be cleaned leaves me paralyzed. Learning how to break it down into small steps was an amazing help for me. I had to find flylady.net to learn that, because my parents couldn't teach it.



For me, a list and a set time (right after school, right before bed, etc) is what I need. My son gets the same thing - a written list and a set time. Written lists, and set times (including how much focused time to spend - I set a timer for 15 minutes.) is what gets us through.

What 10 year old boy cares about a clean bedroom? I'm sure there are some but they have other things to worry about. I would echo one fo the other posters who asked "why do you need it to be clean? And your definition of clean is different than his. Of course you don't want rotting food under the bed and it should be dusted and vacuummed and clothes mostly put away but other than that - why the concern? Is it a room that is visible to visitors that come over to the house? Is it just bugging you because he doesn't care? Again, why should he - he's 10?

I would make ithe rules very simple , few in number and reasonable for his age and maybe make it contingent on something he loves to do If you don't put all your clothes in your dresser today you don't get to ________.

My son's bedroom is upstairs and few people see it other than us and his good friend who comes over (he could care less what the room looks like either!) My son does make his bed but the way he does it DRIVES ME CRAZY! He has 90% of the blankets draped on the floor and everytime I go in there I change it but now I'm thinking I should just leave it alone and let it be....he makes the bed doesn't he?

I don't think this is defiance - he's 10, just doesn't care about a clean room like you do and unless it's unsanitary it might be something you just have to let go of.

does he recognize that it's messy ( to you) ?

This has been a major battle for months with partners 11y/o daughter. We tried giving her break down lists of how to do it. We also tried the 'doing nothing else til it's done' stance. She STLL wouldn't do it, she'd just go and sit in her room and stare at the walls. The only thing we've found that works is to give her a set amount of time to do it and if it isn't done within that time it gets done FOR her with the aid of a big black bin bag! The threat itself seems to work without actually having to follow it through. We also accept that fact that having her room in a mess is just the way she lives so it's not expected that she keeps it tidy all the time. When it gets impossible to see the floor or when she wants a friend over to play then tidying the room is a requirement, the rest of the time it's her mess and she's the one who has to live in it!

spyder~ our son is the same way. he'll dig his heels in so deep if he doesn't want to do something............he hates cleaning. doesn't matter what kind. we've tried telling him we'd help. we've tried ultimatums. we've tried nagging. at this point, frankly, we've given up. once a week, i ask for his dish collection ( the accumulation of drinking glasses he's collected over the week). he complies with this. we've just decided to choose our battles. if he wants to keep his room messy, then he can do so as long as he keeps his door shut

I really enjoyed the posts above from Apsies themselves that explained why keeping a room neat can be so difficult.

I have this situation with my son, also, but it has improved over time. Like one poster said, he has discovered that he likes it neat, it's just very difficult for him to get there. Long run, it was stepping on his own toys and hurting himself, and not being able to find things he was looking for, that got him to pay a LITTLE more attention to it. But only a little - he still doesn't see the need to carry his discarded underwear to a hamper, for example. THAT sort of thing we end up doing.

What I've noticed with my son is that battling him on something gets us nowhere. Issuing consequences doesn't get too far, either. And it isn't defiance; it's a total inability to move himself forward on the request. He ends up frustrating himself and creating a meltdown situation. What he needs is a combination of a reason that makes sense to him, that helps him believe in the project, AND steps to break it down and make it less intimidating. If I say, "please clean up your room," nothing will happen. But if I ask him to gather up a specific pile of Bionicles and get them in the right bin, before they get stepped on and broken, odds are, it will be done.