How do you get your children to help...

Just let her be I'd say, it's a kid. I personally don't really believe in punishment as a way of raising a kid. So see what she does, ignore the mess as long as you can and see if she gets enough of it herself after a while. Then the moment she cleaned her room by herself reward her for it instead, tell her she did a good job and perhaps treat her for an ice cream or such. It'll stimulate her to clean it more often because she gets rewarded for doing so rather than scolded for leaving it.

Not that I have an answer but I would debate paying a child to do a job that really is as much to their benefit as yours.I think it should be a contribution they should be willing to make rather than being bribed.

I have a ten year old who I have been struggling with forever. When she was smaller I went into her room about twice a year and did a major clean-out. I threw out what I bagged. She never missed a darn thing. Never went looking for it. This kid would take old toothbrushes out of the garbage and collect them. As she grew older I told her she could not go to a certain birthday party or whatever until she cleaned her room. I meant it and she knew I did and she cleaned her room. But she couldn't KEEP her room clean. It drove me crazy. Then it came time for her room to be painted. I said she would not get it painted until she learned to keep her room clean. She cleaned her room, but then it would be messy again in a few weeks. I just kept telling her I was not going to invest in improving her room if it was going to be messy. She cleaned up the room and kept it clean for over a month, so we painted her room, put in new flooring and bought her a new bed. She has still managed to keep her room clean HOWEVER the stuff she took out of her room when we were painting is still a mess in our livingroom! LOL! We have company coming on June 2nd so I'm breathing down her neck now. This morning I threw stuff out on the front lawn today. Then she worked on the livingroom and her room for at least an hour. You have to show her that you mean business. You must find something that is really important to her, important enough for her to want to keep her room clean. And, I'd say no more eating in the bedroom - kitchen only. They don't like being limited like that so take away their freedom and have them earn it back. Good luck!

I haven't gone that far, but I have actually bagged up toys and things that were on the floor and removed them from the bedroom, telling the kids if they can't clean up, I will, with a trash bag. I didn't throw the stuff away but gave it back about a week later, ensuring them that next time it will go in the trash. They kept things picked up for quite awhile after that. If it gets too messy and they don't clean up soon, I grab a trash bag and start heading down the hall to their bedroom. They usually get there first and start cleaning up....

Well I go through this all the time with my 4 year old grandaughter who lives with me. I get to hear all kinds of speils about why she can't clean the room, which she shares with her sister who is older. She is 8 years old, and all her toys are in my room for safe keeping. The 4 year old will blame everybody in the house for the mess, except herself. well when she is given enough chances I take all the toys out of the room, for at least 4 days to a week. Then things are ok for about a week or so, then it starts all over again, when she forgets whats it's like not to have toys in her room. I have found one tactic that works though, but it is time consuming, and you have to do it everyday. While dinner is cooking, I will tell her to clean her room, and if it's not done right you won't eat dinner ( that never happens though ). She will clean it and call me and tell me it's clean. I will then check the whole room and if not clean , she has to clean it till she is done. Usually we go through this for 1/2 hour. Sometimes it does run into the time the food is on the table, and thats when she decides to do it right. Then lol she is so proud of herself. But this child thinks she is above any kind of work, but lol she now wants to do chores and earn money like her sister & brother. I told her as soon as you learn to keep your room clean, then we will talk.

Just tell them to help if they start sulking then get more firmer on them they all like to try there luck lol.....Bless there cotton socks

What I do if my kids wont do what they are asked is I will tell them that if they dont do it I will take something away from them. Also I offerthem an allowance every week for doing there chores. I dont ever ask for perfection bcause I know they are kids and they wont do things they way I would but all Ilook at is the effort that they put into it and the fact that they tried and cleaned up a good part of it.

When I was 7 I used to get an allowance for keeping my room clean and helping my mother with some light housework. It wasn't very much but he gave me a little cash to buy candy and ice cream......candy was a penny and a one scoop cone cost 5 cents. When I didn't do what my parents asked me to do then I wouldn't get my allowance for that week. It was an incentive to do what I was told and at the same time made me aware early of the value of a penny. My brother and I found that the more we helped around the house the less flak we got from our parents when we needed an advance on our allowance. If you don't like the money angle then perhaps you might find another incentive that would induce her to clean up her room.

Well...this may not work for everyone, and some might think it is a bit extreme, but what I used to do was tell my children when they responded with 'I'll do it tomorrow' is simply let them know I too have options. Response one: Good, I'll fix your dinner tomorrow too then. Response two: Weren't we supposed to go buy 'whatever' this weekend? I think next week would be better. Response three: Oh good, that will give me time to dump more junk in there for you to find a place to put...your brother has lots of things he needs to get rid of. Kids are going to be kids. They want to put things off, they like their mess because to them it is an organized mess, work really is a four letter word. Give her some options, let her know you also have them and you are both entitled to exercise them. C'mon, you have had years more experience at this than she has...think back...this is one mile you have already walked and now she is using your old shoes.

i have the role in the house once my stepson did not clean his mess his not gonna be able to play his game or watch his favorite cartoon so he keeps his room pretty clean including his bathroom.

Nope. I don't think that is extreme at all. You aren't asking her to give you the moon, just to clean her room. Maybe you need to take her stuff out (put it under lock and key somewhere she can't get to it) and if she keeps her room clean she can get it back a little at a time. When she slacks off, she loses things again. My parents used that tactic and it worked with us. She is plenty old enough to pick her room up when asked. We would get spanked and while it worked for a while, losing our stuff was a bigger deal to us, especially our games and toys. It isn't any fun when you go to play and there are no toys because you didn't do what you were supposed to. :) You have to make sure that you are consistant, though. If she knows you'll give in if she whines or cries enough it won't work. If you say she'll get a few things back in a couple of days if she keeps up her room then make sure you do it. My sister wasn't successful with this tactic because she wouldn't honor her own word and took and gave things back when she felt like it and not when she said she would. JMTC

I agree with gr8esama. My best friend has an 8-year-old and had the same problem with him until she started giving him a specific time to have it done by. And I remember when I was growing up, my brother used to always leave his sneakers in the bathroom. My mom kept telling him to put his sneakers in his room, over and over again, and he wouldn't do it. So finally one day, she took all the sneakers in the bathroom and threw them away. Needless to say, he stopped leaving anything in the bathroom. Yelling doesn't work and neither does just asking nicely. So either make it a chore for which they earn allowance (so no clean room = no money) or take away something they love until they've done as you asked (like their Game Boy or TV).

This takes a little while to train a child the way i see it and at the age your little girl is you are just getting started. My kids are a bit older but they no that in order to get priveleges in the household they must do there part. Like tonight my little girls room is a total disaster and she could not even find the things she needed to do her homework. I gave her the stuff to get her homework done from my office and she had to clean the room or she would not get tv time or play time until it was done. You will get protest but you have to be persistant and give it time it will work and it teaches you child responsibility.

Hi there, I always bribe mine, if they clean there room they can pick a sweet they like. it some times works and if it dont i leave it till bed time then i say ur rooms a mess to go to sleep u have to tidy ur room and they do it there are ways around this, hope u can find a way.

If my children won't clean up their own mess I threaten to throw all of their stuff away and I have doen this. Like some of the other people that have responded I have found that after you have gone through with a threat the child pays more attention to you. Don't tell a child that you are going to do something and not follow through. Set down some rules for her to follow and let her know what will happen if she doesn't follow the rules. Make sure that you keep to the rules as well.