No matter what age your kids are, getting them to clean their rooms (and keep them clean) can be a nightmare. But parents of tweens and teens know that once a kid hits double digits, the room cleaning battle becomes next level. They are, to put it mildly, gross. And once they have cars, after-school activities, and jobs, the last thing they want to set aside time for is household chores. That’s why this mom’s TikTok video is going viral—she’s cracked the code on getting teens to clean, and bless her for sharing her secrets with the rest of the world.
Mom of eight Kris Renee said she had to develop a system because her family of 10 (plus two dogs) lives in a suburban house meant for a much smaller brood.
@krisreneeauthor I’m their mother, not their maid 🤷🏻♀️ #raisingteens #momofteens #raisingresponsiblechildren #dirtyteenager #teenchores
♬ original sound – Kris Renee Books
“When my children become teenagers and they are of the age that they get to do the fun things—like get a driver’s license and get a car and get their first job and join the after-school clubs and activities and do all of the things—flitting around town, living their best life… In our home, that also means that you have leveled up your responsibility for yourself: for your person, for your possessions, and for your space,” she says. “So, when I notice that their rooms are getting out of control, I let them know, ‘Your room needs to be cleaned.’ I don’t give each one a specific time frame because it’s different [depending] on the child. It depends on what their after-school activities are, what their evenings look like… it might be three days, might be five days, might be seven days, but I give them a fair amount of time to get the job done.”
Once each kid’s time frame is up, they receive a 24-hour notice. At the end of that 24 hours, if they still haven’t cleaned, Renee steps in and does it for them. “I clean. I organize. I dust. I vacuum. I wash their sheets… You know, I just give them a fresh restart—simple as that,” she says. And moms, before you start yelling about how this defeats the whole purpose, there’s more.
“But once I’m finished with that, I make an itemized list of all the services rendered and how much time it took me to perform said services, and I present them with the bill in which they are expected and responsible for paying me for my time and my effort.”
Renee explains that this system works so well, her younger kids only had to see the older teens go through it to realize they didn’t want to have to pay their mom to clean for them.
“Two of my teenagers have had to do this, and once my younger teenagers have watched their older siblings go through it, they’re like, ‘Yeah, no thanks. I’m just going to handle my stuff,'” she says.
What’s especially genius about this hack is that it teaches the kids so many life lessons. There’s the responsibility of chores and time management. But there’s also the fact that other people’s time (including mom’s) has value. As an adult, there are times when I don’t want to do my own chores. But knowing that the alternative is paying a professional is usually enough to make me suck it up and set some time aside to clean. Teaching kids this lesson gives them a nice head start on the realities of adult life.
Of course, not everyone is on board—Renee got some comments from parents who think it’s way out of line to charge kids for services. But considering the kids have a choice, we think this is a great hack.
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