Son's room | Imamother

amother

Thu, Oct 31 2024, 10:44 am

My son has a very small room that is quite frankly always a wreck. It's full of all kinds of junk and who knows what they he never uses (or even sees) but he insists on keeping. He dumps his clothes on the floor, his clean and dirty clothes get mixed up. It's a disaster.
He is 10 and has ASD. I know I'm at fault for not training him to keep it clean but the room is too small to have both of us in it at a time and every once in a while I send the cleaning lady in.
For the next few months we actually need his room for something else because of other construction in the house, so we need him to move out of there.
This feels like a huge opportunity to empty out the place and declutter and deal with it all once and for all.
I just don't know where to start.
I'm afraid if I do it with him, he'll never let go of anything. But I also don't think it's ok to trash all his things. How do I declutter effectively and respectfully?
About his clothes, I'm thinking time to declutter and minimize major so we're not dealing with a dump all the time. Any advice on that side of it?
I don't think this is a job we can do together, he doesn't want to clean or declutter his room. Should I make him do it with me?

Any advice is welcome!

amother

Tan

Thu, Oct 31 2024, 10:48 am

I gave my kids a few boxes. One for prizes one for special papers etc.. I said you only get these so choose very wisely which ones are important enough to take up space in here. When it gets full and we need more space we go through it again, usually once a year, and they decide which things no longer have value. Laundry I remind them every night to put clean clothing away and throw dirty ones in the hamper in their rooms.

So in your case gather things in categories and have him choose what’s important to keep.

zaq

Thu, Oct 31 2024, 3:19 pm

Pack his stuff into cartons by category: clothes, books, toys, pets dead or alive, UFOs (unidentified floor objects), and so on. Put everything except whatever he will obviously need-- clothes and schoolbooks, mostly--in an inconvenient location. After he returns to his room, restore only those things he missed enough to ask about. Everything else, out of sight, out of mind, get rid of. Draconian, perhaps, but effective. For a while, at any rate.