A: Children cannot feel motivated to do anything that isn’t in their own interest. With rare or temporary exceptions, unless you coerce and manipulate them, they will not clean their mess. However, if we coerce and manipulate children, they will resent us and may dislike doing the very thing we are trying to get them to do. Many young adults resent housework of any kind precisely because they were required to do it against their natural inclination.

When you try to “make” children do your agenda, you are being dependent on others to fulfill your aspirations, which is futile. Children learn this dependency lesson very quickly and your stress gets even greater when they insist that you do what they want or else they won’t be satisfied.
Scattered toys do not cause stress; wanting the children to clean up when they don’t want to is the real source of parental irritation. We feel peaceful with whatever we cherish about our children and we suffer when we struggle against them. Can you imagine how you would feel if while nursing your baby a thought came to you that she shouldn’t be nursing? Try to imagine how you would feel cleaning up with a different kind of thought in your mind. The mind wants to be right about your old beliefs and so this may seem difficult at first. Knowing that you can keep your convictions, just imagine for a minute that you clean up while you have the thought, “I love cleaning the mess, and I am glad I get to do it.”

I am not saying that your children can never help you clean up, but be honest with yourself and with them. Request their help because you want it and not because of some moralistic idea about who they should be that they aren’t. Such honesty and integrity will allow your children to say “no” until, sometimes, they may say “yes” and then do it with joy. Their choices will be authentic and you will not be dependent on their help, nor teach them to be dependent on others.

I know you think a child should learn to be responsible and tidy, but will she learn by living out your agenda or maturing on your time table? Will neatness then become a habit? My concern is that what she learns will indeed become a habit. Here are a few possible lessons that could become part of the child:

• She learns to be dependent on others for her satisfaction: “Mom is happy when I clean up the mess and upset when I don’t. My happiness depends on someone doing something that I want.” This is the source of much misery in life.
• She learns to be inauthentic in order to please others: “I should be doing things to fulfill Dad’s need.”
• She learns not to trust her own inner voice: “I don’t have any interest in this, but I should ignore my inner guide and just do it to please Mom and Dad.”
• She is feeling inadequate and disconnected: “Mom is disappointed in me because I don’t live up to her expectations. I am not good enough.”

Children acquire every skill they need exactly at the right time and not a minute earlier. When we tell ourselves that they should read at six, do chores at nine and be ready for college by eighteen, we create confusion and anxiety for ourselves and for them. The price of making children the players in our movies can be high, because they learn to abandon their own path.

There is only one “mess” and that is the confusion of the mind which tells us to expect children to be who they aren’t or to do what they don’t. Your mind may say, “My child should organize his toys, he should do chores, he should learn order and responsibility, I won’t look good if my home is a mess, other families’ homes are always neat...” etc. All these beliefs are neither true nor in any way useful. This is the mess that has to be cleaned up inside yourself; it is the result of cultural and social pressures and your own need to live by the will and dictates of others (encoded in the same manner.) Controlling the actions of others is futile. Apply the desire for order to yourself. Sort out your unconditional love of your children from the many voices, not yours, running in your head.

The child absorbs our confusion and dependency: “Whose direction should I follow, mine or theirs’?” “Who am I?” “Who is responsible for my happiness, me or someone else?”. Whatever you want to teach your child is grist for your own mill. “He should clean the mess” translates to “I should clean the mess,” because it is your aspiration.

By taking action on your own behalf, you teach your child to be responsible for himself. Your integrity with yourself is the greatest teaching you can provide; it models inner order and clarity.

Why have a war with the children? You weren’t upset with them when they took their time to nurse, wore diapers or needed your presence. You assumed that they did exactly what they were ready to do at the time and you loved every moment. Keep that trust alive and your aspirations will be at peace with the way your children are.

When I ask audiences of parents: What is easier, to make the child clean the mess or to clean it yourself? I always get the same answer: Do it yourself. When you respond to your own aspirations and follow your own teaching, you have power in the matter. Your child will either grow up and be committed to orderliness or she won’t. If she is not, hopefully her future partner will be. Have you noticed that about half of us are and half aren’t? Isn’t that neat?

Naomi Aldort is a parenting counselor, writer and public speaker. Send your questions to: naomi@aldort.com. She leads workshops for parents and offers counseling by phone. Her articles can also be found in “Mothering” magazine, the McGraw Hill university text book “A Child’s World”, “The Journal for Family Living”, Taking Children Seriously”, “The Nurturing Parent”, “Mother- Tongue”, “Kangaroo Kids” and more. You can read her articles on her website at www.NaomiAldort.com.

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