Hey Curt, so I've been thinking about one of the biggest fights that teenagers and parents have and it's over keeping your room clean or cleaning your room after it's gotten a little bit out of hand. I was definitely one of those kids who had an incredibly pristine room and then all of a sudden it looked like a hurricane came in and everything was on the floor and nothing was in a drawer and it was so overwhelming. I didn't know what to do, but who didn't know what to do even more than me. was my mom. So I'm wondering, I'm sure that's never happened in your household, but if it has, or if it could happen in your household, how would you handle that?
Curt (00:38.321)
I have a few good tips on how to solve this problem. So when the kids were in the cave, they didn't clean up the stegosaurus bones and the mom got mad. So this actually comes through a couple of different strategies I've tried. And what I was told by other parents and even therapists was, you gotta make them clean their room, teach them responsibility. Now from what I know, listening to also mom dads and girl dads and boy dads, I'm a boy dad, it was brutal, screaming.
I'll take your cell phone away, your smartphone. You're not coming out of that room. Here's three garbage bags. I mean, it is slamming of doors. So my first reaction was, why would I do the thing that causes so much anxiety and strife and anger like everybody else just get on the hamster wheel? Why not try something else, right? The definition of insanity is just doing the same thing. Before you can do something different though, you have to acknowledge a few things. One, you're doing the best you can until this point.
And doing something different doesn't make your love of your parents who probably did the same thing to you, your mother and father kind of browbeat you into cleaning it, the screaming matches, your slam the doors. It's okay to try something different and it doesn't dishonor them or say they weren't good parents. So that's the first thing you have to understand. They did the best they could with the tools they had back in the seventies, the eighties, the nineties, depending on how old you are. So just doing something different.
means you're breaking from what your mom and dad did and that's okay. That does not mean they weren't good parents, you don't love them, they didn't have their strong points, but maybe yelling and screaming about your room wasn't one of the things they knew how to handle. So I did some research and something you have to understand too. If your son and daughter is a outwardly appearing great person in society, so I mean great grades, athletic, whether it's cheering or science club or robotics, whatever they're doing. They're just a really good person. They're, they're killing it in life, right? A lot of friends, boyfriend, girlfriend. It was explained to me by my one therapist that their room is kind of their space of independence and rebellion. So sometimes when you have great kids who have really messy rooms, right? They just making a mess. That's their way to express their anger, frustration, and kind of their F you to the world, because on the rest of the part of their life,
Curt (02:55.089)
They have to keep it together for the grades, for the sports, for the outward appearance, whatever they're doing. So understand that that little area, eight by 10, 10 by 10, 20 by 20, is their part of their personality to just let it fly, to just be a rebel, right? So I let them have that space to be messy, but we all want our kids' room. We have to teach them responsibility. That is correct.
Two tips I'm gonna give you to help that process and this is how I did it. Now this is not a Disney movie. There is no super ending at the end where all of a sudden it's the sound of music where seven kids are making their beds and hanging everything up. But it has improved it a lot. One, I tell my boys, I have three teen boys, I say, look, I understand you're under a lot of pressure at school and sports and you live in a great life. And this section, right now you're not able to keep clean and that's okay. I get it.
It's a way of expressing yourself and it's a way for you to kind of let your hair down. So it's okay. But when you are ready and you think you can keep your room clean and you're ready to take that on with your schedule, I'm here to help you. Let me teach you or show you how and I'll give you some tips. And they were like, whoa, okay. So that's trying something different, right? Don't just pound them, pound them, scream at them. And of course the room is still messy, but they got the message. Here's two actionable tips to start the process that you can use. One, make their bed.
Yep. Don't touch anything else in their room, but every morning make their bed. I don't know if you've seen the video of the Navy Admiral talking about, you know, making your bed is the number one most important thing to a successful life and being happy in life. It's a great little, it's out there on the internet. They'll put a link to it. Just make their bed. Don't touch anything else. Let them get used to coming home to a made bed every day and just used to seeing it used to that, that cycle of pulling the sheets back and then getting in. And the next morning it's made.
Number two, depending on your house, buy some hangers, maybe you have some extra hangers, anything with a collar or long sleeve shirt goes in and gets hung up. So any collared shirt or long sleeve shirt, even the long cotton, you know, summer shirts gets hung up. Anything that's a t -shirt or shorts goes in a drawer. So basically all you're going to start doing and you tell them I'm here to help you, I'm just helping you out is making your bed. Second thing you do,
Curt (05:17.745)
Grab some extra hangers or get some hangers and just take anything long sleeve and hang it up. There's an order to it and there's an expectation that they start to see about things getting hung up. And then you just put it on them, right? If you're gonna, are you preaching or teaching? If you're just gonna preach at them, it's gonna go one air and out the other and everything's gonna go on the floor. But if you remind them, hey, your bed's getting made, your room's looking better, but I'm here to help you when you're ready.
to kind of learn how to like put your stuff away correctly at night or where the laundry basket is because they don't ever hit that. That's the first put it, give them the ownership of it. Tell them it's okay. You understand that they can't do it right now. But, And then they'll want to do it. Now it's gotten a lot better. It's not perfect, but that kind of thinking as opposed to screaming, yelling, take the cell phone away. You can't come out of the room until this is done. You're pulling your hair out and
just try something different, because that's not working. Generation after generation, which technically is generational trauma, if you're passing that on from how your mom did it or how your dad did it, we can break that. And it doesn't mean the other generation was bad. It didn't mean they didn't love you or they're not good parents or you don't love them. It's just, I'm going to try something new, because I hate screaming at my son or my daughter over this every Saturday morning, if that's your laundry day. So I think that's the way to do it. It's been.
A lot of great progress in my household, still a work in progress. Again, not the Disney movie, but a lot better.
Preeti (06:42.118)
Well, there's a couple of things I really like about that. Number one, you're helping to deescalate the situation. Those screaming fights, I have a friend who actually took the door off his daughter's room, off the hinges, in an incredible show of no restraint and total anger. You're helping to not add to those moments. Those are really, really difficult moments in a family, and they tend to take on a life of their own. Once that begins, it's sort of hard to not let everything escalate to that level, like DEF CON 10, right? But the other thing is this concept of role modeling. One of the reasons that it's sometimes hard for me to stay tidy is because I have ADHD.
And I feel very overwhelmed by mess. I need things neat and orderly, but if it starts to become disorderly, there's a point of no return where it becomes overwhelming for me. And what I love about what you're doing in terms of the role modeling is that you're actually showing kids how to do it. You're teaching them how, you're showing them how, and you're letting them enjoy the benefit of a well-made bed.
I make my bed every morning because I absolutely love the feeling of getting into a made bed. It is one of the things I look forward to all day at the end of the day. And so what you're doing is you're giving your kids the opportunity to enjoy that without necessarily the heavy lifting and the labor of that. And that eventually they will mimic what you do. Seems like a really strong strategy. I hope it works for you. Hope those rooms get clean.
Curt (08:29.649)
Yep. And that's just some of the strategies that MAYA for life that we're doing and talking to parents and teens at the same time. And, and then trying to get people, like you said, to break these generational type, these, these lines drawn in the sand about cleaning the room and you're going to get a job X, Y, and Z. And like, these are just things that are taught to us by the people that may have not had the tools to kind of be inclusive and talk it out. So you have to be ready to try something different because
Preeti (08:30.918)
All right.
Curt (08:59.409)
The strategy of just screaming, yelling, taking doors off, taking away phones. Who wants to do that? Like why, why go down that road if you know that's the result right off the bat?
Preeti (09:09.574)
Well, it ends up being traumatic for everybody. And at MAYA, we're looking to build self-esteem and not cut people down for not knowing how to do things. And so creating this opportunity for dialogue between parent and child is a really important part of what we do as well. Thanks so much for sharing that, Curt. Thanks.
Curt (09:27.409)
All right, thank you, Preeti.
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