Should a teenager coming out of quarantine be held responsible to clean up after themself?

Question

My almost 15 year old son recently had to spend 10 days in the basement, due to a member of his school testing positive for COVID-19 (he tested negative). During that time he had the run of the whole basement to himself: bedroom, hallway (with sink and mini-fridge), and bathroom. He erected a sheet halfway down the stairs to demark his territory, and we had a spot where we left him all of the food that he needed (and anything else).

For the most part he kept to himself and to his devices, coming halfway up the stairs to talk or see his siblings when he felt like it.

After the 10 days were over and he came upstairs, we tentatively ventured down…And were met with a complete mess. Rotting food floating in the sink. Garbage on the floor. Unbelievable stench. Dirty clothes everywhere.

So what is the proper way to respond to this? He is old enough to have take care of himself during this time, he knows about cleaning, and he knows that what he left us went over the line.

My partner approached this by going down with him, doing most of the initial cleaning (bringing up dirty laundry, filling three garbage bags) in his presence while talking with him, and getting him to participate by holding open the last garbage bag and walking out together to throw it away (and for this participation he was thanked).

Part of me thinks that he got off too easy. That even though he was on his own in the basement, he should still be held responsible for maintaining some minimal level of cleanliness (not expecting it to be spotless, but this was way beyond anything that we would tolerate in "normal" circumstances). However, as a teenager in his prime of exploring rebelliousness against his parents, I am hesitant to think that any direct reprimands or retaliatory punishment would effect anything other than an eye roll and sarcasm in return.

So what is the best way to respond to this? Is my partner's approach the best that we can hope for? Is there a different strategy to take in this circumstance?

Answer 1

I think it's hard to say exactly what would've been the right approach, because we (and you, probably) don't have all of the details, particularly about how the interaction went when your partner attempted to get him to clean up. But, some thoughts.

First - it's possible, even likely, that the mess seemed too big for him to consider possible to clean up. This is a common issue we face with our (slightly younger) children, but it's also a problem I have from time to time - it's not unique to children. I get over it, apply my strategies (map/reduce), but it's possible he doesn't really have the skillset to do that. Giving him those tools is a critical life lesson; being able to overcome seemingly impossible obstacles by breaking them up into a series of smaller tasks, for example, or simply getting started and seeing the obstacle shrink measurably over time, are vital skills to learn.

Second - I certainly think it should've been primarily his job to clean it up. I'm not sure I'd argue that he should do it alone, both because that might have simply made him give up on an "impossible" task, but also because it's important to make it clear to him that he has your (and your partner's) help when he needs it. Help doesn't imply doing everything though, any more than it would in any other circumstance; he needs to take the lead, or at least do the majority of the work. But he should know you have his back and will help him when he meets a seemingly impossible task.

As to how you get to that point (where he does the work) - that seems more herculean of a task to me than cleaning it. If it were me I'd probably have simply said that he's welcome to come out of quarantine when it's cleaned up, and again offered to help, but limited my input to strictly less than his; if he's not cleaning, then neither am I. If he simply refuses and leaves the basement, of course, there's not a lot you can directly do, other than whatever you would otherwise do when he's doing something inappropriate. I'd also consider a legitimate plan on his part to be sufficient to let him leave - as long as he follows through.

As far as your partner goes, I would make sure you and they are on the same page - and don't approach them second guessing them; that never works well. Instead, if you're going to bring it up, bring it up as "This is clearly a problem [that he doesn't help clean up]; how can we fix it for the future."

Answer 2

Ok, so I'm 15 too, and this is just gross. I mean yeah we do some dumb stuff, but living in a basement for 10 days with rotting food and all that is just plain gross. He is a 15 year old, almost an adult, and he should be cleaning up after himself. You may be thinking, "oh, but this was just him being a little free and having lots of alone time so it's alright. He won't do it again" but that's wrong. If he learns that other people will clean up his mess even when he is old enough and perfectly capable, he will start using that to his advantage.

If it were me that did that, well first off I wouldn't, but if I did, I would clean all of it up, and probably get grounded. I'm not saying that grounding your son is the right thing to do now, because if he did this than it leads me to believe that you both allow him to do stuff like this a lot. If he is accustomed to it or has a habit of leaving a mess for others, you need to work with him to help him break that habit. If there is still a mess, you should talk to him and have him clean it up, and if he refuses, then there need to be consequences. Like you said, " ...in his prime of exploring rebelliousness..." but living in that condition, jeopardizing the health of your whole family isn't ok. If you think that just talking to him will get an eye roll, then make it a larger punishment. Take his phone or games, set an earlier bedtime, stuff like that.

If he gets used to people doing everything for him, it's going to be a lot harder to break that habit in real life, and it's setting him up for failure. You might be thinking that you don't want to be "mean" by punishing him or making him do work, but letting him continue on with this behavior is going to make his life awful. I know that doing this will be tough, especially if they are already distant or rebellious, but it will help him a lot.

Answer 3

Retaliatory punishment after the fact is a waste of time

It’s happened, and you already had your reaction to it. For better or worse, you decided to let him off “easy”. Then turning around and coming up with a punishment makes you look unpredictable and won’t really lead to positive results for your son.

Cleanliness is still an important value to impart

On the other hand, we clearly have a problem at hand here – your son is at an age where he’ll be expected to care for himself soon. Whether that’s living in a flatshare, a college dorm or whatever, they’ll be living by themselves or with others who have significantly less motivation to put up with him.

The solution is to make it his responsibility

For better or for worse, they’re clearly not quite up to the task of looking after themselves yet. So how do we fix this? Well, by the same method you found the problem in the first place: Making him responsible for his own space. Vacuuming, cleaning laundry, getting rid of debris and trash, washing dishes etc. This isn’t a punishment. This is just making sure they’re learning to live on their own while you’re still around to help them with it. Don’t do any of the work for them. If they’re struggling, break down the tasks they need to do (it’s easy to get overwhelmed with large cleaning jobs, just the act of breaking it up into small easy to do chunks may do wonders for their motivation). Check up on them regularly, at the start daily although hopefully that won’t be necessary after you keep it up for a while. If you find something wrong with their room, don’t fix it for them. Explain to them what is wrong and tell them to fix it, and make sure that they do. Hopefully they’ll learn the habit soon enough and you’ll have no cause for complaint anymore, and can rest much more assured when you finally send them off to live on their own.

This applies to other life skills as well

Cleanliness isn’t the only thing they’ll need to do. Have you talked to them about how to pay bills? Pay taxes? Voting? Cooking? There are many adult skills your son will soon be expected to be able to perform to an acceptable degree, you should ensure that they have the skills they need while you still can. Keep in mind that nobody is born knowing all of these things, and it’s not the sort of thing you get taught in school so it’s on you to ensure they have what they need.

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All of the above is under the assumption you have a normal healthy teenager. If they’re suffering from developmental disorders, physical disabilities or the like they might need special attention that’s not covered by the advice above. If they do, it might help to talk to a qualified therapist or the like to figure out where your child may need special care and additional assistance. As other comments and answers here also mentioned, you should check if this is normal behaviour for your son or if it is something that’s been brought about by the stress induced by the quarantine – it’s not exactly uncommon for someone in an unusual situation to feel helpless and “let themselves go”, so to say.

Answer 4

Cleaning up after yourself isn't a punishment. It's just life.

My teenager desperately wants to be perceived as and treated like an adult. Mostly he thinks that means getting to do what he wants, but we are spending a lot of energy trying to instill that it means more doing what you don't want, just because it needs doing.

If it were my son, I would point out it is things like this that make me still perceive him as a child, that I use how he handles adult responsibilities as a gauge for how he will handle adult privileges, and does he care to correct that perception.

Answer 5

Great question and I am sure many parents struggle with their teenagers on this subject. In my opinion, a 15-year-old is too old to not have the responsibilities of cleaning up after themselves. I would recommend putting your foot down and setting up ground rules about chores, this will prepare him for a world where he doesn't have people keeping up after him.

I also think you and your partner should talk about this beforehand to get on the same page and maintain consistency around this subject. Everyone in the household should be helping out.

Answer 6

tldr: start giving them all chores, mentioning (if asked) that it is because you realised how unprepared the 15yr old is for living alone.

This is a tough one. Should he have cleaned up? Absolutely. Can we judge him for not having done so? I don't think so. Don't know about you but at 15 I was never left knowing no one was checking up on me for so long.

An important question parenting question is motivation. If your son was previously relatively tidy perhaps he only does it because you're watching or friends are coming over - left knowing no one but him will see the mess everything can be left for tomorrow, procrastinating until it becomes such a big job he doesn't feel like he can start.

What to do next?

Your actions immediately afterwards aren't up for debate - the question is what we do next. You should start giving your children chores and consequences - they can't use their devices if they don't complete chores (harder to implement with older kids but if not now it'll only be even harder in the future) or rewards for doing them (money, days out, choosing dinner etc). You could mention that this was triggered by seeing the state that the 15 year old left the basement in, that it shows they need to learn to do these things.

Parenting is one of the hardest jobs - you're already tired and sometimes you take the easy route. You do the vacuuming because you know that even after painful process of forcing your kids to do it you'll probably want to do the job yourself after all the bits they've missed. It pays off in the end though!

Answer 7

Rather than looking backward, look forward. Your teenager may already know that they "should" have cleaned up as they went along, but (for whatever reason) they didn't. Making them feel bad is unlikely to be helpful in the long run. So: don't punish, don't even criticize, but make it clear what your expectations are, while still allowing the teenager some autonomy.

To do this, you could have allowed a grace period (24 hrs?), during which you celebrated his escape from quarantine and encouraged him to enjoy the outdoors, seeing mates, and your company. Then, next morning, you could have chosen a suitable moment (i.e. when he is not busy and nobody else is listening) and said "I'd like to use the basement this weekend. When will you have time to move your stuff out?"

Depending on how much time you have available, you might have added "... and would you like me to help you with it?"

If you are (very) lucky, this might be enough to get him to work. At least it opens the discussion, in a non-threatening way.

I have two teenagers. I have generally been quite lenient with mine where housework is concerned. For tasks such as hygiene and homework that I have felt the need to nag about, I have found it very useful to ask "When shall I next remind you about this?"

I do agree that teenagers need to learn independence, but I think it is still more important for parents to maintain a long-term relationship with their offspring.

By the way, I think it is great that your partner (presumably male) showed your son that cleaning is not exclusively "women's work"!

Answer 8

consider this: your teen has been almost totally isolated from human contact, and living in miserable, filthy conditions for the past 10 days. aside from how overwhelming such an extensive cleanup can be (especially for someone who probably hasn't fully developed the skills to manage difficult tasks like this), this person has also spent the past 10 days living in this room, with the conditions slowly deteriorating while failling to address it. no one likes living in filth, and i can say from experience and from accounts from friends, it can be an utterly demoralizing, and possibly even traumatic experience, and can be devastating to one's self confidence and ability to plan and perform basic tasks. It's a viscous cycle, and recovering from this will require help.

This probably doesn't mean cleaning everything up yourself though. it might mean a few things:

• give your teen a chance to get away from the filthy basement for a while. Give him time to walk away and come back later, after getting some amount of experience in a space that isn't totally out of control. This isn't procrastinating, it's essential recovery.
• plan the cleaning process together. If he really can't engage and you need the basement clean quick, this means taking the lead and doling out a few easy tasks while you do the heavy lifting. But there's a good chance you can work more equally, either by taking it slow or if he surprises you with energy. At this point you have to meet each other where you're at, neither of you can do more than you're capable of doing and pushing either yourself or your teen isn't gonna accomplish anything.
• remember the difference in your respective situations right now: you're probably pretty annoyed and grossed out at the state of the room, your teen is probably disgusted with himself and emotionally shut down. The point of involving him in the cleaning process is primarily about helping him experience regaining control of a space he's lost control of, and secondarily to get the space clean.
• maybe you're not ok, and also overwhelmed by how messy the space is. Maybe you're angry at the mess and this is getting in the way of a compassionate response. Whatever the reason, there's no shame in bringing in a friend to help if you can't handle the dual tasks of managing a cleanup effort and comforting a devastated teen by yourself. This is a pandemic, no one is at their most capable, and that includes you.

EDIT: looks like i should've read the question more carefully. Sounds like your partner took the lead on an excellent, compassionate response. Also sounds like they had a long chat, and your partner likely has a good sense of where he's at emotionally, so they're probably the person to talk to about how to proceed.

Answer 9

In short, of course. Out of quarantine or not. But show him this thread and you'll get no answer. Suggestion: insist he live in the basement indefinitely, and allow friends to visit, but don't clean it, see who breaks first. He will, when peers echo your opinion.

Answer 10

I would be angry, a lot.

Well, knowing who I am dealing with, I would try not to let the basement environment and the teenager behaviour to deteriorate that bad. I would enforce the same basic rules that are applied upstairs regarding bedtime, personal hygiene, participation in remote schooling and homeworks (if applicable), recreational use of the Internet, waste, dishes and dirthy clothes management, etc...

The control is pretty much possible first by asking the kid and second by using some device with a camera (if lying is suspected). I am not encouraging a live stream spy cam for the basement. Give the child a camera phone, ask him to take a picture, and send it to your device.

After the fact - well, I would expect WAY more involvement in the cleanup project than helping me with the bags and I would enforce more involvement.

Answer 11

I'm a father of younger children than yours: not speaking from direct experience here... however, my kids don't see the mess... hell, I don't see the mess sometimes... I'd like to think I would notice rotting food, though!

So my proposed solution: give the man the basement on a more permanent basis, and anchor the ongoing privilege of retaining that space to keeping it clean.

The rationale for this is to "monetise the result" (ie. give an incentive to achieve your desired outcome). Cleanliness is learned, and while someone else is seeing to it for us we'll almost certainly find something more exciting to do.

I've made a big assumption here that the basement space has some desirable features to the youngster, but if it doesn't, you might need to find some other lever. (Find their "currency".)

Space permitting, a second-hand washing machine could be obtained that he can use as his interim dirty-clothes storage. (Washing doesn't get any easier than this!)

You might also decide in the future to levy some contribution to the weekly costs of the household - and then choose to return this to him, in part or full, if the space is kept presentable. (Please note: you're taking the levy, then giving back once the pre-condition is met - after the initial outrage over the injustice has passed, it will become a constraint of the system...)

If he chooses to ignore the desired result: "it only gets worse from here", for example, you might decide to take the power cords and controllers for his electronic entertainment devices, ("while there's work to be done, there's no time for games" etc.)

A parallel idea may be to create a schedule of things that need to be done, (a list of tasks with times allotted): bin day, every morning, every night. My wife discovered that one of ours responded really well to a schedule, to the point we had to remove the weekend from it just to ensure that he retained some flexibility in his morning routine!

Implementing this strategy could be problematic if the situation arises where he's earning the new space, and someone else in your family household needs to be quarantined... maybe you might wish to wait for a little while 'til the virus stops circulating as freely in the population? Having said that, he would probably understand the risk to the household and the requirement for quarantine.

Answer 12

This is a really easy answer: yes, the teenager got off way too easy. As documented, he knew what was expected, and failed to do it. When addressed, he participated, but made no real effort. The person who should have done the thanking is the 15 year old. Your partner already took care of it, so you should accept that parenting, but have a discussion with your partner. Would your partner be so accepting if you did this or... would you be so accepting if your partner did this? Personally, I would have made my teenager clean up and punished them if they didn't. But, that ship sailed the instant your partner parented.

1. When punishment happens, punishment always happens after the fact and is one of two ways we learn, the other of which is a reward. Failure to punish is permission to do anything. That doesn't mean there isn't an avenue for mercy, it means that for mercy to be gained, recognition of a wrong is required. This isn't about punishment, its about responsibility of all parties. To be clear, punishment should only happen if he refuses to clean, but making him clean is a parent's responsibility. Him cleaning is his responsibility.

2. We will always face difficult situations in our lives. There is no way around that, we still need to be taught to be responsible in the face of those difficulties and we are still accountable for our actions to society, whether that society be a small block like a family, or a large block like a city. The sooner he learns that what matters is how he responds to those situations, the better.

3. If the teenage boy is living in your house, he needs to be held to the standard of keeping it clean. Living in a house is a privilege that not everyone gets, being given an entire basement is not a privilege many people get, therefore, with great power comes great responsibility.

4. 100 years ago, 15 year olds were getting married, supporting families, and living on their own. Allegedly, Jesus's mother was around 13-16. If we look at our forefather's documentation, we see that children were given great responsibility and were well educated at early ages, doing apprenticeships and becoming masters at their crafts. At some point in the past 100 years, we decided children weren't capable of being responsible and shouldn't be held responsible. Simple tasks such as cleaning rooms or cleaning up after themselves are now thought to be impossible and/or beyond expectation. What I am saying is, a 15 year old should know how to clean and be held to that expectation. However, if he does not know how, then it is very important to teach him that skill at the earliest point possible. More likely, he knows what is expected and was rebelling. If he is rebelling, why is he rebelling? That needs to be addressed.

Our treatment of teenagers as babies is a societal issue, and the fact that my post has been downvoted proves the societal issue is systemic. We as a society don't believe in holding our children, ourselves, or each other accountable, we argue that punishment is bad. We have forgotten simple wisdom. In psychology, the most effective training methods used both reinforcement and punishment. We think that giving something negative to our child is bad, but in reality, withholding that negative thing is sometimes the worst thing we can do. Holding a child to be what they are capable of being and urging them to grow has a higher probability of developing their best possible outcome in life.