How Do You Get Your 4 Yr Old to Clean Her Room?!!

You're in the middle of a war. I wonder why this war is going on. Have you thought of using a time of relative truce to ask her what the big deal about cleaning is?

I usually clean with my kids (4&5) and make it a teamwork thing like others have said. But I have to watch myself or I'LL end up cleaning EVERYTHING! Usually my kiddos are on board for cleaning but sometimes they resist. That's when I get THE BAG. You stand there with a garbage bag and tell her she better start picking up the toys or Mommy is putting them in the garbage bag and give them away to other children who appreciate them. Personally I threw out toys once and ever since then the mere mention of the garbage bag gets them scrambling to clean. They know I will do it and they will not be seeing those toys ever again.

You can not expect a 4 year old to clean their room by themselves. What you do is show them how it is done and help them. You say while Mommy picks up all the princess toys, you pick up all the dolls... or whatever she has in there. Then tell her you can probably do it all before her and turn it into a game. At this age, they need guidance, not punishment. She is learning to clean her room and she needs help.

Wow, there is really nothing left but a spanking, if that coincides with your parenting style. Other than that, I can't think of anything.

My daughter was exactly the same way - it didn't matter to her what form of punishment I used - she simply didn't care. It's really hard when they don't care. I never figured out how to effectively discipline her and as a result, she's not a very successful adult.

Hugs to you!

When I was little my mom did something called "mama clean". If we didn't clean our rooms she would shut us out of the room for a couple of hours while she went through all our toys and threw away any toys that were broken or missing pieces and gave away ones she felt we didn't play with anymore. Since we didn't want our toys tossed we would clean it.

One of my daughter is very competitive and the other isn't- at all.
Either way, they love the Wonder Pets song about teamwork. Usually (but not always) singing this song gets them going and cleaning.
I used to be able to tell them that i was coming in there with the vacuum and whatever was on the floor was getting vacuumed up and gone. This only worked becasue they were afraid of the vacuum (yes, I know, mean Mommy- no hate mail please). My mom got a new vacuum and gave us the old one. The whole thing worked exactly ONE time after the switch. When I turned on the vacuum, it was so quiet that they are no longer afraid. Now they want to push the vacuum around like it is one of their toys. :/

Eeek, she's a stubborn one isn't she?! For my dtr (just turned 5) all of those things typically work. I usually just have to tell her to straighten her room before she can XYZ (TV is usually her "currency" because she only gets a half hour a day). On rare occasions I've told her if I have to pick up her toys I will find a child who doesn't have as many toys as she does who will appreciate/take better care of them than she does. Sometime that results in her deciding to donate items that aren't as important to her anymore which is fine by me because it cuts down on clutter a bit.

Is she in preschool?
In preschool, they all clean up. It is a thing they learn. And there is a clean up song.

She seems overwhelmed by it all.
You need to help her.... help clean up along side of her.

Sounds like you have given her ample time to do it. Give her one more chance but tell her "If you refuse to clean your room, I will take your toys and donate them to children' who will respect them and use them and clean them up." If she doesn't do it - box them up or put them in a trash bag and take them out to your car. Tell her that she no longer is allowed to have them. I'm sure doing that 1x will help immsensly. IF not, then she really doesn't care about the toys and getting rid of them is probably the best thing! My kids (share a room) have 1 bin of toys and 1 bin of books under my daughter's bed (small room). Each night before bed, I tell them to clean up the mess. If they didn't, we literally couldn't get to their beds becasue the room is so small. Luckily they do not fight me on this. Their playroom (in the basement) is a bit of a mess MOST of the time - but I usually sit down with them 1-2x a month and go through, clean it out, organize, throw things away, etc. Other than that, we usually let them leave it 'as is'. But her bedroom - I would not let that fly.

Good luck!

*Another idea if you don't want to actually get rid of the toys* is to tell her they are going in your car/up/away until she can learn to keep her room clean or do as she's told. Only then will she earn them back, 1-2 toys at a time.

At four she isn't mature enough to clean it by herself. My DIL tells her kids to bring her all the Red things. Then to bring her all the blue things. She goes through the colors. That seems to help the little ones.

When my wife did it she would sit on the kids bed and tell them to pick the shirts, then the pants, then the socks. When it came to the toys, she had them pick up the cars, or books or what ever she saw that needed to be picked up. She had a box for them to put the toys in. They put the dirty clothes in the dirty clothes hamper. The clean clothes they folded (or my wife folded) and then put them in their chest of drawers.

Only when the kids refused to cooperate did they get spanked.

Good luck to you and yours.

I simply tell my 5 and 7 year olds to clean their rooms. They are boys.

My 8 year old daughter - wow! My 5 year old was sick in late March and while he was laying in his room, I was cleaning my daughter's room. I tossed a bunch of things and literally trashed them - no getting them back. Her room has not been so messy since. But her room was like you are describing your daughter's. We did the same things and it got old. So me tossing things helped big time, it let her know I wasn't playing around.

We do it together as a race. Whoever gets the most toys in the toy bin wins! It's fun for him, we practice counting, and it gets done with no tears or drama.

At this age I do think she needs constant help/guidance each time she cleans her room, she may need this for awhile still. I would also get rid of/store away many of her toys. The less she has in there the cleaner it will stay. Maybe divide everything into 3 or 4 bins, leave one in her room at a time, rotate it out with a different bin each week or two. It will reduce the mess and keep the toys "fresh" for her and most likely make them more enjoyable and appreciated. Hope you find a solution.

How frustrating! If she's anything like my four-year-old, she's just testing to see what you'll make her do. And she knows how to clean up her room, she just doesn't want to. (who does?) Here's a tactic my mom used with me when my room was a total catastrophe: she wouldn't come in. That's it. If I wanted her to read me books, hang out with me, put me to bed, my room had to be reasonably picked up. If it wasn't, she'd blow me a kiss from the door, turn off the light and shut the door for the night. I HATED that. And it motivated me to clean up my room.

With my daughter, I have only done that once, but I just put her in her room and tell her she can't do anything fun until it's clean. If that doesn't work with your daughter, why not just remove everything from her room and just find a new home for it? Don't let her earn it back until she's older. I tell my daughter all the time that if she can't take care of her things, I'm taking them and she's not getting anything new until I see that she's mature enough to take good care of them.

Good luck!

My 4 year old son and I clean his room together. His chore list clearly says he is expected to pick up toys, but I don't think he would ever do it if I wasn't in there with him! Usually something like he puts away all of the dress up stuff in the dress up bin, while I put the cars in the car bin and we each take a new group when that one is done (next he does planes and I do legos, etc.).

If he refuses to pick up something that is his responsibility and I end up doing it, I keep it.

If those items go to my office and he doesn't miss them or ask for them within a reasonable time, they get moved to the basement to be put back in to the rotation later. It's a good way for me to gauge how much he is really playing with something, even if he obviously just had it out. Sometimes things are on the floor just for the sake of dumping something out!

Yes, you still need to do the "sit in the room" and work on it together.. Also, when she is not there, go in there and throw away the junk..

I used to play music and sit in there and hold the trash bag and cheer each time she threw junk away..

I also called out, "pick up all of the books first and put them on the book shelf.". Sometimes we would count them.

Then. "pick up all of the dress up clothes and put them in the bin.." I would ask he, "does that still fit? Or do you even play with that anymore? "

She is still a bit young and is overwhelmed by her own mess. Typical for this age.

We work together and use teamwork! And we sing about it and dance and act silly!

Make a routine out of it. Every day after quite time and every night before bed we pick up her room.

My youngest has always been overwhelmed by "stuff" and as a result she doesn't have much. She's almost 13 now and it's still hard for her to clean her room effectively. I am constantly weeding through her things while she's at school, and things often "disappear" without her knowledge.

Spend a few hours BY YOURSELF going through everything. Throw away the junk. Pack up things that are special but that don't really get used or played with. Get rid of clothing and shoes (my daughter basically has enough clothing to get through a week without doing laundry.)
Make several piles, dress up clothes, babies, legos, whatever categories she has. Then tell her she gets to keep a set number from each group (you can keep two babies, two princess outfits, three stuffed animals, whatever.) Let her choose which items she will keep and tell her the rest will be donated to children who have no toys to play with. Keep toys that come in sets (likes games or puzzles) on a high shelf that YOU bring out one at a time. She must put one set away before getting another out.
She may not like it but I think as the parent you should set the boundaries. It sounds like a good boundary for her is LESS IS MORE. Besides, a child only needs so many toys, ya know?

We play "Cinderella". Or make it a competition, or sometimes I simply offer her a trip to the dollar store, a few bucks, or something she likes for dinner, etc. Works better than punishment at this age.

Maybe do a small allowance for chores and make this one of them? My son seems to be pretty motivated by earning some change. I don't give him very much for doing things, but $0.25 to a 4 year old seems like a lot! LOL! I do have to comment on the mom below--"You get her to clean it by being the PARENT! She is the child and you are the parent." REALLY? So, you are supposed to pick her up and take her hands and force her to grasp the objects and put them in the bin? Because otherwise, how can you FORCE a kid to pick up their room?? Especiallyu strong willed stubborn ones. Sheesh! Some people! Good luck mama and hang in there!

You get her to clean it by being the PARENT! She is the child and you are the parent.

With my first, it wasn't too hard. We would sing and pick things up. And if they got out of hand with toys everywhere like you describe, I put toys in a bin and they could only have so many. Or 2 bins and alternate the bins. With my 4 yr old now, still trying to figure that out. She sleeps in our room so toys are in the front room. We end up cleaning them up. I do take things away but no where else to put them and we don;t want to tell her she cannot have any toys. I think that would punish us more. If she thinks you can take them away, put them in a bin and hide them somewhere. After a while, she will want them back because she won't have anything to do. And do not entertain her yourself. She probably figures she will get them back eventually so why worry about you taking them away one day. My nephew's mom once made him pick up all the toys and take them to the garbage outside when he would not pick them up for a full week. He picked them up after that. But she ended up buying the toys that he picked up since she threw them all out.

It sounds like my daughter has been cloned! LOL! Sorry that I don't have much advice for you, but I hope it helps you to hear that I am going through the exact same thing with my 6 year old. I look forward to reading the others' ideas, but honestly I don't have much hope of finding a cure for my stubborn little one. I've finally just told her that she may have friends over to play if her room is clean, and I don't fight her about it anymore. I just close her door and try my best to ignore it. :) Good luck!