Top 10 Reasons You Should Let Your Child Have A Messy Room

I've been away and busy so here's a little something to help you a) amuse yourself b) develop a little self-deception c) not notice I'm too tired to blog right now d) have an excuse for yourself when you're too tired and e) be tricked into thinking Twitter is helpful

 
Top 10 Reasons You Should Let Your Child Have A Messy Room

by Teresa McEntire

1. It can enhance your child's balance and coordination skills. As they have to weave around the objects on their floor, leap into bed, and scale the mound of clothes without slipping.

2. Memory skills are improved. As your child struggles to remember where they left their library book, under the bed or maybe on the desk, they are working their memory. After all doesn't every parent want his or her child to develop a good memory?

3. Handyperson skills are developed. As they learn the fine art of unjamming a drawer that is stuffed too full of clothes. This could come in handy when they are a parent themselves.

4. The art of positive thinking is learned. As they think to themselves, "This room looks great. I know where everything is. I like it this way. It reflects who I am." In some cases this art is very finely developed.

5. They learn the power of persuasion as they convince parents and siblings to help them clean. This lesson is especially potent when they share a room with a sibling.

6. The idea that they have their own rights, space, and privacy is established. They learn that their room is a place where "parents won't violate their values and standards of cleanliness." If you can even say messy room and cleanliness in the same sentence?

7. They learn how to push their parent's buttons and that having a messy room is a big button.

8. They learn creative thinking as they establish their own system of orderliness, which is undetectable to the average parent's eyes.

9. If they do decide to clean their room they will learn the art of discrimination, "sorting dirty clothes from clean ones or useful junk from garbage junk."

10. They teach parents valuable lessons like how to "mediate a cooperative non-violent cleaning effort" and "that learning cannot be imposed from without because it only has true value when it comes from within."

Some of the thoughts were borrowed from Linda A. Boulter in her article titled Natural Child: Parenting and Educating That Respects Children.