A: If our 14-year-old son ever so much as lifted a finger to tidy up the recreation room, I would be shocked.
He does nothing to clean it, but of course with his video games, TV shows and videos, he pretty much monopolizes the place.
It is a mess. I find dirty dishes, candy wrappings and what-not down there almost every day. It is awful.
What can we do to help him clean up after himself?
Q: You must know that yours is not the first 14-year-old who lacks cleanliness.
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In fact, I would venture to say that being messy is more the norm than it is the exception for kids your son’s age.
The problem is not that he is messy. The real problem is that you want him to change his behaviour when he is not particularly interested in making that change, moving from being a slob to someone demonstrating responsibility around the house.
People, including those who are 14 and who are as messy as your son is, are not likely to change unless they want to do so.
Sometimes you can get them to change by bribing them and sometimes they will figure it out if you sit down and have a heart-to-heart chat with them. You might even be able to punish them until they agree to do their part, but the bottom line is you need something inside of your son to agree to make the change before any of your strategies will work.
If you don’t get that, and if you try to make your boy change something he doesn’t buy into, you could wreck the whole thing.
Instead of having a loving son, you could find yourself with a person who avoids you.
Let’s start at the beginning. Many kids who are 14 are messy. That is the way that it is.
Many parents of kids who are 14 are frustrated. That is just the way that it is too.
But let’s all remember this: kids who are 14 do not stay 14 forever. They grow up and when they do, the chances are good that they will look after their own homes as diligently as you do yours.
One of the great moments in my life was when our oldest son, now in his own home, said to me, “Dad, would you mind taking off your shoes by the front door. I don’t want you tracking dirt on my floors.”
Do you know how many times I said that to him when he was 14?
Kids grow up and grow out of that early defiance that permeates the whole adolescent thing. Your job as the parent is to be as neat and tidy as you can, to do what you can to thwart the garbage monster now living with you, to remind him to pick up after himself every now and then, but to otherwise do what you can to give him a home that is neat and tidy and most importantly, caring.
If you do that you will do just fine and all of that anxiety you are generating when you try to imagine your boy as an adult living in a waste bin will be for naught.
He is going to be just fine and so will you. You just have to believe.
Jacklin Andrews is a family counsellor from Saskatchewan. Contact: jandrews@producer.com.
