We finally lowered the boom on Avery. After weeks of nagging Avery about her room Mark and I told her the other night that her grace period was over and she would do nothing until her room and her laundry were completely done. It has gotten to the point in her room where I actually fear for her health. Mounds and mounds of all sorts of stuff, nothing is put away; and the fact that her idea of making the bed is to attach one corner of the bottom sheet and throw her comforter in a heap on top of that.
I realize some of this is just part of life with a teenager, but the other part is that she has absolutely no interest in keeping up her room. Once she does clean it up she loves it and makes comments about how she is going to keep it that way, but it never lasts. Honestly I do think part of it is that this is her ground or turf, her kingdom so to speak. Her room is the one place where she makes the rules and she does not like anyone else sticking their nose in to tell her how to run things. As her parents, we feel like that is fine, but there is a point when we have to step in and draw the line, and that is what we have done.
Before I went to run some errands yesterday afternoon, I told her to get busy on her room, including making her bed, which she had tried to do the day before by putting a queen size sheet on her twin bed. When I walked into her room, my mouth fell open. "Avery? That sheet does not fit your bed, it is too big! You slept like that?" I said in my extremely shocked and amazed mom voice. "I know, but I did not know what else to use." She responded. "Um…maybe when you realized that it was too big, you should have asked for help!" I said. At that point I realized I was up against a child that had no interest in making this easy for me. So off I went to run my errands, crossing my fingers that she made some headway while I was gone.
Not long into my outing, I got a call from Avery. Her good friend had called and wanted her to come over, could she go? Her friend's mom would pick her up and everything. This is where it gets tough, because I wanted to let her go, but I couldn't. I had to stand my ground. "No, sorry Avery you cannot go" I said feeling like the Grinch who stole Christmas. "Fine!" she said and hung up the phone. I really struggled with feeling like a mean mom then. That's the worst part of putting your parental foot down; the kids think it is easy for us. They honestly think we (the parents) are happy about yanking the fun rug out from under them. That could not be farther from the truth. I want my kids to have fun and live the teenage dream life, but we all have responsibilities in life and if I do not teach Avery to be responsible and follow through on things, who will? Isn't that my job?
Once again here I am faced with questions about parenting and stumbling around because there is no guide book or parenting for dummies book out there with a clear answer for me. Unfortunately my girls are my guinea pigs. The other tough part is that each of them is different so what works for one does not work for the other. Which would explain why Aly's room looked just as bad as Avery's and I did not say anything. Of course, Avery pointed it out to me. All I said was that Aly will clean her room on her own and it takes her an hour, not three long weeks of nagging. At that Aly jumped up and cleaned her room. I thought it was a little brown nosey, but it did prove my point. Thanks Aly!
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