Captain Chaos

I decided to clean my son’s room yesterday after two months of letting him “handle it.” Before I stopped badgering him to clean his room, I set up some ground rules mainly that there was to be no food in the room and clothes that weren’t put in the laundry room on Saturday didn’t get washed. I foolishly thought that if he had to wear a dirty uniform to school, he’d get the message and start picking up his stuff off the floor. He's worn the same socks to school for two weeks and I'm not sure where the clothes are coming from. Still there's been no attempt to straighten his room.

I’ve read 100 times that kids with ADHD have “poor organizational skills.” What I haven’t read is an accurate description of how incredibly messy that can be. Sure, his binder and school papers are shoved in his backpack with little hope of ever finding them again. But his room achieves a whole different level of disorganized and “poor organizational skills” doesn’t begin to cover it. Pure, complete chaos seems more appropriate. 

I’ve tried to help him. He has a dresser with drawers for clothes, shelves for books, bins under the bed and in the closet for toys and boy stuff, a bedside table for a clock radio and a lamp, a desk and even an organizer for his cell phone and iPod. 

The bookshelves were empty, clothes were on the floor, bins were empty and his “stuff” was everywhere. The bedside table was clean, the lamp and clock radio across the room were connected by an elaborate mass of extension cords. His desk was home to a 2-ft. long Lego vehicle (the extra pieces are still sticking to the bottom of my feet) and there were parts of broken toys, victims of his endless curiosity, everywhere. 

When I ask him to clean his room, I write down specific tasks so that when he gets distracted two minutes later, he can, theoretically, look back at his list and get back on track. It worked better when he was younger and not so curious. The last time I left him alone to clean his room, I returned 15 minutes later to find him finishing a pulley system made with dental floss so that he could open his bedroom door by moving his chair across the room. 

I think a sparse room with no “stuff” is the answer. Rubber walls might not be a bad idea either. Anyone else have any ideas?