easy child's room

[happymomof2]

Yuk!!!

I bagged all her clothes that were laying in the floor this afternoon. Liberally used the carpet fresh and vacuumed.

Not sure how I am going to handle this. She won't clean her room when I tell her to, or if she does she just shoves stuff in her drawers. So every couple of months I spend 2 hours in her room cleaning. Well I am done - tired of it.

Thought about telling her if she wants something out of the bag she has to fold/hang 10 items before she gets it.

Also she conveniently left a graded test paper at my sisters. She got an F. This was a test she took week before spring break. One that had she brought home the book and studied she would have made at least a B if not an A. Any time there has been a test and she brings home a study guide she makes a good grade.

She is smart and can do the work she just doesn't see the importance of it and doesn't want to. When she makes even the smallest of efforts she makes good grades.

She will be in Junior High next year and wants to try out for Cheerleading. We already went to 1 meeting. If she makes the squad I am hoping it will be the incentive needed to keep the grades up. Of course if she doesn't make good grades she won't be able to cheer.

She is a good kid and behaves for the most part. I have been guilty of letting her slide due to spending so much time on and with difficult child.

What do you do???

 

[LoneStar14]

We've had the same situation in spending all of our time lately with difficult child. I don't know if you can, but maybe you can get her out of school early one day and get some special mother-daughter time together. I did that with both kids. I even rented a car for one of those days. To this day, they say its one of the best times they had and can recall details of it.

As far as the room, when easy child's room gets messy I let easy child know it needs to be cleaned. If something is coming up, its a no-go until the room is clean. That always works.

 

[TiredSoul]

The room situation sounds like mine when I was her age. My mom used to gather up all the clothes and junk and put it in a pile in the middle of the room and tell me to clean it up. We also had to do our own laundry and had an assigned laundry day - so it was to our advantage not to throw our clothes all over the place. If we didn't get our laundry done on the assigned day - too bad, we had to wait until the next week. At that age, I didn't want to wear dirty clothes.

I was also that way about the grades - any effort I put forth meant good grades, but I didn't want to put forth the effort. I'm not sure why - and it really started for me when I entered Jr High. I would think/hope allowing her to join cheer will be the incentive she needs to get good grades. Now if she doesn't make the squad - what then?

Hang in there. I know what you mean about the time needed to deal with a difficult child. I often feel like I am neglecting the other one and it's not fair, it just is. Some special one on one time might be what she needs.

Good luck - you're doing great.

 

[Wiped Out]

Sounds a lot like my easy child. Honestly her room hasn't been cleaned in months. I refuse to do it! I did just tell her that before she asks to do anything she needs to clean her room. She was so angry and said it shouldn't matter to me what her room looks like.

Even the grades sound like my easy child. She is capable of As and Bs but not motivated to achieve.

If your easy child will let you spend some special one on one time with her (mine is in that typical teen stage that moms are no fun). It is hard to be a sibling of a difficult child.

 

[LittleDudesMom]

You know this is a situation that most of us have issues with. I can tell you that I've been through this with my easy child and I will also tell you that it has gotten better. She's a junior this year and it has clicked this year. She has matured a lot over this school year.

The driving has added some independence and maturity as well. One of the things I did was make her responsible for her own clothes when she was a freshman. She was resonsible for her own laundry. If she was going to cover the floor with her clothes, then she would deal with wrinkly stuff herself and then not having clean stuff to wear. I also got tired of washing clothes she hadn't worn. She would just put stuff on the floor or the sofa in her room then when it came to cleaning up, all the clean stuff got stuffed in the laudnry basket!

The other thing I did was make both kids responsible for cleaning their own rooms on Saturday mornings before social stuff took over. You know how social these high school girls are! The rule in my house was that the room had to be picked up, clothes put away neatly, bed made, surfaces cleaned and junk not laying on the dresser, night table, etc., before she could move on to having fun with her friends.

It has become a habit and now easy child would rather not spend hours cleaning on Saturday and keeps it fairly reasonable as the week goes by. I've gone back to doing her laundry most of the time because she keeps things picked up and her laundry basket is not filled with stuff she didn't wear!

So basically I gave a little and she gave a little. Concentrate on school and such during the week, let the room slide a little during the week. Then, habitually clean on Saturday or no fun.

Sharon