My good friend and her teenage daughter were on a college road trip and came up with this Top 10 List. They are two of the most wonderful people I know and have no personal experience in this area! 🙂 Read on and enjoy!
Top 10 reasons your teenage daughter’s bedroom should be organized:
10. Her college roommate will thank you.
9. She can locate her 373 bobby pins from last spring’s prom up-do
8. Morning beauty time goes from two hours to 1 1/2.
7. She’ll remember what color her carpet was.
6. Flip-flops. Flip-flops. Flip-flops.
5. No more accidentally brushing her teeth with the Neosporin
4. Science experiments should be reserved for the biology lab.
3. six mascaras? Really?
2. Using half a bottle of body spray doesn’t replace her misplaced deodorant.
1. Donde esta mi Spanish Essay??
I can’t just leave you hanging so…
Tips for organizing your teenage daughter’s bedroom:
1. Get help.
It may not be a good project for you to do together. Your daughter may listen to someone else better and your feelings may be saved in the process. If you do help her, pretend she is someone else’s child and never give your opinion (unless asked) about what she should keep or get rid of. Ask questions to guide her through the decision making process such as:
- When is the last time you used this?
- What is the worst thing that would happen if you got rid of this?
- Does it work?
- Do you love it?
- Will you really want to see this when you are 30?
2. Get a big plastic bin (or two) to be the “memory bins”.
Anything that she is keeping for memory sake should be moved out of the room into the bins. Label these bins and put them elsewhere – basement or attic storage.
3. Have a 12×12 box in the room where all future “memory” items are put.
Each month transfer these down to the memory tubs. Now she has a system in place: memories come in, they go into the box, they get transferred into the tub.
4. Focus on a certain area.
Choose a closet, a particular drawer, one bathroom (or area of a bathroom), your desk, one of the piles on the floor, etc. – and follow my SPASM acronym.
- Sort by pulling everything out. No decisions. No comments. Just put like with like.
- Clean the area.
- Purge through each pile.
- Assign a home to each item. Talk through zones – shoe zone, formal zone, reading zone, make-up zone, photo zone, etc. Homeless and misfit items are sad. They need an area where they belong and fit in!
- Set Limits. Let her decide on the limits. When this shelf is filled I will have to purge a purse before getting another one. When this basket is filled I will have to purge before getting more body lotion, nail polish, pens, etc.
- Maintain. What is something that happens daily, weekly and/or monthly? Pick up for 5 minutes before brushing teeth every night. Straighten closet up and pick up all clothes each week before putting clean laundry away. Every month on my birth”day” (the 24th) I will straighten my drawers and transfer memories to the memory tub.
5. Celebrate!
Do something fun together – or let her do something fun with her friends. The toughest part is about 3/4 of the way into the process when there are still piles of random stuff that need to get put away. Push through this and make the reward exciting enough to be worth the effort!
***Take before and after pics!!! Even “middle” pics of the empty space! Have fun!
Image: FreeDigitalPhotos.net
Someone I know bought a coat tree for her teen-aged daughter’s bedroom. When her daughter asked what it was for, she said, “It’s for putting your clothes on. Like the floor, only vertical.” I couldn’t resist sharing that here!
Ha! That is funny!
Great suggestions Tracy…sounds familiar…I have two teen girls now…
🙂 I won’t have a teenage girl for another 3 years!! Something for me to look forward to!
Love this post…both the humor and then the practical suggestions. You make a good point that sometimes it’s useful to outsource the organizing work. Personally, I always enjoyed organizing with our daughters (now 20 & 22,) but I know plenty of situations where my clients find it more productive and positive if they bring me in to work with their teens as the neutral party.
I love organizing my 8 and 10 year old daughter’s room with them, too!! We started organizing it regularly while they were young so I think that helps! 🙂 Plus, we always try and move the furniture around to make it exciting!