If your apartment is a mess, where to start? A mess in your apartment?

Actually, that's all you need to know about the nightmare going on in the teenage abode. If you are not ready to come to terms with this, but intend to do something and are thirsty for details, then family psychologist Marina Slinkova will provide them for you.

Marina Slinkova

Psychologist at the Center for Systemic Family Therapy

Hygiene issues

A family in which the child is part of adolescence, faces the problem of redistribution of power and revision of agreements. The rights and responsibilities change - not only for the teenager, but for all family members. Keeping your room tidy is not a matter of hygiene. In any case, this is not primarily a matter of hygiene (although you may not think so).

Are you afraid that your child will get used to living in a mess and will forever remain dirty? Most likely, this would be the case if the whole house was always a mess. But then why did the idea suddenly arise to demand order in a single room? If in your bedroom there are books on the bed, socks on the table, and shoes wandering throughout the house, if the kitchen is filled with boxes and jars that “will come in handy someday,” and the bathroom is always open toothpaste, then why does your son’s or daughter’s unmade bed make you so nervous?

If there is a familiar order throughout the house, then the child will have the opportunity to compare and choose between order and chaos. In the vast majority of cases, young people eventually come to the idea of order.

How to respond to clutter

Cleaning a teenager's room relates specifically to his interests and does not directly concern you. You can close the door and not see the mess in his room: your things are not there, which means they cannot get lost. You can invite guests to someone else’s territory only with the permission of the owner, which means you won’t have to blush for the mess.

It turns out that you feel irritated not so much because of the clutter as such, but because there is a place that is now beyond your control.

Of course, if your teen's things are scattered outside his room, you can insist that he clean them up. He wants freedom and independence - for God's sake. But without an attempt on the freedom and territory of parents and other family members.

Your child is now experiencing a transition from a child's perception of the world and himself to an adult. Now it is important to separate situations that affect the interests and life of a teenager, and situations that affect the interests and life of parents and the family as a whole. It is necessary to define spheres of influence in advance and provide for sanctions for invading foreign territory. If it was not possible to stipulate in advance, then there is no point in making claims after the fact. It is better to discuss this some time later and make any necessary amendments. Relatively speaking, if a teenager scratches the kitchen table while sawing his gadgets, then he is not subject to immediate shooting. But when your anger boils over, you need to discuss sanctions for the future. But - in equally! - if you decide to rearrange the disks in his room from the table to the shelf or re-sort the laundry in his closet, then you have also invaded someone else’s territory. At the very least, it's worth apologizing.

Mess as a form of protest

When you clean up the mess in your son or daughter's room, you arrange his room for yourself. And even when you, supposedly demanding independence, call on him to restore order himself, then we are still talking about order in YOUR understanding. And the child thinks something like this: if I clean the room, it will no longer be mine, it will be like yours. It turns out that in a family there is an equal sign between order and dependence on parents: cleaned up = obeyed.

“It’s impossible to find anything in his room,” my mother is indignant. Indeed, it is difficult to navigate someone else's territory, but perhaps your child is trying to develop his own system of placement in space.

You like it when all your things are on familiar places, at hand - then you can easily find them, quickly get down to business, you can instantly get ready and take everything you need... But we forget that we arranged and optimized our space through trial and error. Why don't you allow your child to go the same way?

You can often hear from mothers: “I’m tired of looking for his scattered things.” But if you are tired, then why on earth would the child eliminate the “tiring” factors? Let him feel the discomfort of the mess himself. Don't get involved in the search, just sympathize. Let me emphasize - sympathize, not gloat.

You can't change how teenagers think or act, but you can definitely change how you react to things. This means you will get a different reaction from children.

In the article “Clutter in the room from a psychological point of view,” we will tell you how you can deal with clutter in the room. One Bulgarian fairy tale tells about an old man who decided to marry his son, but so that the girl would be hard-working and neat. Having loaded his cart with fruit, he went to the village and began shouting next phrase, which surprised many, he shouted: “I’m exchanging fruit for garbage.” Many took advantage of this quirk and carried bags of garbage in exchange for fruit. Only one girl brought a very small bundle, and complained that there was no more garbage in the house. So the old man sent matchmakers to her and made no mistake in his choice, she turned out to be a wonderful housewife, and the young family lived in prosperity and joy.

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Photo gallery: Clutter in the room from a psychological point of view

But when you go into another house these days, you remember old fairy tale. It is difficult to suppress a grin at the sight of a multi-day layer of dust, unwashed dishes and scattered things. Probably, this family was created according to other principles of matchmaking. In another house there is an order that borders on such sterility that you are simply afraid to move or hurt anything. It’s hard not to be happy for the prosperity that reigns in the house and not to refrain from complimenting the hostess. And it happens that in a tidy house there is an atmosphere of discontent and tension. And in an untidy apartment, people are happy with each other and live in perfect harmony. Why is this happening?

American psychologist William James believed that in addition to passions, beliefs and interests, the structure human personality you need to include what a person considers to be ours: things dear to the heart, casual clothes that copy the shape of the body with folds, favorite books on the home shelf, and more. The decoration of a home is an element of the physical self, and you can tell a lot about its inhabitants by carefully looking at the home. The first thing that catches your eye is disorder or order. What, from a psychological point of view, means, disorder is a sign of general looseness, sloppiness and indiscipline. But perfect order indicates solid principles And spiritual harmony. But this explanation is too simple to be true. Because at every step life tells us other ambiguous conclusions.

Parents of almost all teenagers complain about their sloppiness, and that it is almost impossible to force them to keep their room tidy. But the whole point is that the interests of the younger generation are broad, aimed at outside world and are little attached to the details of everyday life. Only when a teenager experiences all the inconveniences that disorder brings, will he gradually become tidy.

When telephone numbers, such necessary ones, are written down on some pieces of paper, when you don’t know where you put the necessary thing, when the place that is intended for meeting friends or for studying turns out to be littered with some things, then you inevitably begin to care about order. But only after becoming mature personality, a person acquires real accuracy.

Does it mean that a mess in the house indicates that the owner or owner failed to grow up properly? A person can and will live like this and act in everything like a little child. But the problem here may lie deeper. We all, in the end, understand that throwing things around is not good.

If a person is unable to put his house in order, then this only indicates a serious internal conflict. Accumulated garbage, scattered clothes, and so on, speak for their owner that he is not able to put things back in their place.

A sink full of unwashed dishes, dirty laundry that has accumulated for weeks, an overflowing trash can indicate that I do not know how to set and systematically solve problems, I do not know how to distribute my forces. If a person cannot organize his life, then he cannot handle serious tasks.

Your affairs are not going well, everything is not happening the way you would like, don’t you think that serious life situations just out of your control? Of course I would like it unpleasant feeling overcome. Start small, look at your home and find out for yourself where you need to put things in order.

When you put your scattered things on shelves, then you do much more, you learn to organize your problems, that is, you put them on shelves. Bring clarity to your “physical self” and then the results will not keep you waiting.

There is another extreme. As psychologists have noted, a strong commitment to order and cleanliness is a symptom of self-doubt, a symptom of internal weakness.

Organizing your physical world at home, a person seems to be trying to protect himself from chaos big world, which is scary and too complicated for him. This creates vicious circle tension: something someone in the household puts out of place causes disappointment and irritation. Housework takes up a lot of energy and time, leaving no room for other important things. And then, in this scraped out shell, a feeling of loneliness arises.

Such a trap can be set for you by a scenario that was learned in parental family when order became important life goal and at any cost. One can only feel sorry for such a person, who main task- shiny parquet and snow-white towels. After all, order in the house is necessary condition, and not a goal, to solve real serious life problems. If we understand this simple truth, then we will find golden mean, which distinguishes true harmony - mental and material.

Every room in the house has some kind of symbolic meaning, and has an effect on your subconscious. Garbage and clutter in every room causes stagnation and inactivity in certain aspects of life.

Mess in the kitchen
It’s not for nothing that the kitchen is called the “heart of the home.” Here you eat, stock up on some energy, even if you dine on defrosted semi-finished food in microwave oven. A dirty and untidy kitchen creates difficulties in supply and nutrition, on a spiritual and physical level. How you take care of the kitchen can tell you how you feel about sources of abundance, energy supplies, and your own nutrition. A neat and clean kitchen opens up space for the comfort and protection you need.

Clutter in the dining room and living room
These are rooms in which you gather with friends, with family, with people close enough to you. Here you come into contact with the outside world, when you are at home, argue with friends about politics over dining table, read the newspaper, watch TV. Clutter will turn the space into a den, and perhaps your place is so messy that you don't invite friends over for years. Maybe you are hiding from others in a pile of garbage?

Clutter in the bedroom
Bedrooms for adults are a place of intimacy and sleep; they should serve the function of renewing relationships and people. A messy bedroom will not bring energy, but weakness. If you feel tired in your most intimate space, just tidy it up and it will help you de-stress and relax. And only then you can have a pleasant time with your partner and sleep sweetly.

Clutter in the hallway
The corridor is the artery of your home. And the chaos in your hallway is like a traffic jam. It prevents different parts of your life and your home from interacting. Look at the corridor: is it so difficult not to stumble in it, is it easy to walk along it, is it well lit? If you have difficulty interacting with people and with yourself, between family and work, it’s probably time for you to clean up your hallway.

Mess in the bathroom
Body care and bathing are such a daily ritual. IN everyday life this is the space you use so that you can prepare to interact with the world. A mess in the bathroom indicates a lack of attention to oneself, and not only on a physical level, it also indicates low self-esteem. A well-decorated and clean bathroom can be a place for rejuvenation and self-care, a serene and peaceful place. Decorate your bathroom, put it in order, turn it into a place where you can hide from everyone and be with yourself, where you will feel safe during the evening and morning ablution rituals.

Mess in the toilet
When you fill your toilet with trash, you suppress your insight and intuition. A dirty toilet indicates problems that impede development in relationships and work, impede your development in life, problems that you are not really aware of. When the toilet door is tightly closed, it does not mean that you have escaped your problems.

Clutter in the garage
Your car is a symbol of independence and mobility. If your garage is a dump of things and your car can hardly fit in there, then you need to be very careful and it is very difficult for you to move through life.

Now we know what a messy room is from a psychological point of view. Don't think of cleaning as something terrible. Every shirt you give to a new owner, every book you take to the library. And also every sheet of paper and magazine that you recycle will create space in your life for events, joy and new energy.

Clutter in the room from a psychological point of view.

In the article “Clutter in the room from a psychological point of view,” we will tell you how you can deal with clutter in the room. One Bulgarian fairy tale tells about an old man who decided to marry his son, but so that the girl would be hard-working and neat. Having loaded his cart with fruit, he went to the village and began shouting the following phrase, which surprised many, he shouted: “I am exchanging fruit for garbage.” Many took advantage of this quirk and carried bags of garbage in exchange for fruit. Only one girl brought a very small bundle, and complained that there was no more garbage in the house. So the old man sent matchmakers to her and made no mistake in his choice, she turned out to be a wonderful housewife, and the young family lived in prosperity and joy.

But when you enter a house these days, you remember an old fairy tale. It is difficult to suppress a grin at the sight of a multi-day layer of dust, unwashed dishes and scattered things. Probably, this family was created according to other principles of matchmaking. In another house there is an order that borders on such sterility that you are simply afraid to move or hurt anything. It’s hard not to be happy for the prosperity that reigns in the house and not to refrain from complimenting the hostess. And it happens that in a tidy house there is an atmosphere of discontent and tension. And in an untidy apartment, people are happy with each other and live in perfect harmony. Why is this happening?

American psychologist William James believed that in addition to passions, beliefs and interests, the structure of the human personality needs to include what a person considers to be ours: things dear to the heart, everyday clothes that copy the shape of the body with folds, favorite books on the home shelf, and more. The decoration of a home is an element of the physical self, and you can tell a lot about its inhabitants by carefully looking at the home. The first thing that catches your eye is disorder or order. What, from a psychological point of view, means, disorder is a sign of general looseness, sloppiness and indiscipline. But ideal order testifies to solid principles and spiritual harmony. But this explanation is too simple to be true. Because at every step life tells us other ambiguous conclusions.

Parents of almost all teenagers complain about their sloppiness, and that it is almost impossible to force them to keep their room tidy. But the whole point is that the interests of the younger generation are broad, directed to the outside world and little tied to the details of everyday life. Only when a teenager experiences all the inconveniences that disorder brings, will he gradually become tidy.

When telephone numbers, such necessary ones, are written down on some pieces of paper, when you don’t know where you put the necessary thing, when the place that is intended for meeting friends or for studying turns out to be littered with some things, then you inevitably begin to care about order. But only by becoming a mature person does a person acquire true accuracy.

If a person is not able to put his house in order, then this only indicates a serious internal conflict. Accumulated garbage, scattered clothes, and so on, speak for their owner that he is not able to put things back in their place.

Your affairs are not going well, everything is not happening the way you would like, don’t you think that serious life situations are simply out of your control? Of course, I would like to overcome this unpleasant feeling. Start small, look at your home and find out for yourself where you need to put things in order.

There is another extreme. As psychologists have noted, a strong commitment to order and cleanliness is a symptom of self-doubt, a symptom of internal weakness.

By organizing his physical world at home, a person, as it were, seeks to protect himself from the chaos of the big world, which is scary and too complex for him. This creates a vicious circle of tension: something someone in the household puts out of place causes disappointment and irritation. Housework takes up a lot of energy and time, leaving no room for other important things. And then, in this scraped out shell, a feeling of loneliness arises.

Such a trap can be set for you by a scenario that was learned in the parental family, when order became an important life goal and at any cost. One can only feel sorry for such a person, whose main task is shiny parquet and snow-white towels. After all, order in the house is a necessary condition, and not a goal, for solving real serious life problems. If we understand this simple truth, then we will find a golden mean that distinguishes true harmony - mental and material.

Each room in the house has some symbolic meaning and has its own influence on your subconscious. Garbage and clutter in every room causes stagnation and inactivity in certain aspects of life.

Mess in the kitchen
It’s not for nothing that the kitchen is called the “heart of the home.” Here you eat, stock up on some energy, even if you dine on defrosted semi-finished food in the microwave. A dirty and untidy kitchen creates difficulties in supply and nutrition, on a spiritual and physical level. How you take care of the kitchen can tell you how you feel about sources of abundance, energy supplies, and your own nutrition. A neat and clean kitchen opens up space for the comfort and protection you need.

Clutter in the dining room and living room
These are rooms in which you gather with friends, with family, with people close enough to you. This is where you interact with the outside world when you are at home, arguing with friends about politics at the dinner table, reading the newspaper, watching TV. Clutter will turn the space into a den, and perhaps your place is so messy that you don't invite friends over for years. Maybe you are hiding from others in a pile of garbage?

Clutter in the bedroom
Bedrooms for adults are a place of intimacy and sleep; they should serve the function of renewing relationships and people. A messy bedroom will not bring energy, but weakness. If you feel tired in your most intimate space, just tidy it up and it will help you de-stress and relax. And only then you can have a pleasant time with your partner and sleep sweetly.

Clutter in the hallway
The corridor is the artery of your home. And the chaos in your hallway is like a traffic jam. It prevents different parts of your life and your home from interacting. Look at the corridor: is it so difficult not to stumble in it, is it easy to walk along it, is it well lit? If you have difficulty interacting with people and with yourself, between family and work, it’s probably time for you to clean up your hallway.

Mess in the bathroom
Body care and bathing are such a daily ritual. In everyday life, you use this space so that you can prepare to interact with the world. A messy bathroom indicates a lack of attention to yourself, and not only on a physical level, it also indicates low self-esteem. A well-decorated and clean bathroom can be a place for rejuvenation and self-care, a serene and peaceful place. Decorate your bathroom, put it in order, turn it into a place where you can hide from everyone and be with yourself, where you will feel safe during the evening and morning ablution rituals.

Mess in the toilet
When you fill your toilet with trash, you suppress your insight and intuition. A dirty toilet indicates problems that impede development in relationships and work, impede your development in life, problems that you are not really aware of. When the toilet door is tightly closed, it does not mean that you have escaped your problems.

Clutter in the garage
Your car is a symbol of independence and mobility. If your garage is a dump of things and your car can hardly fit in there, then you need to be very careful and it is very difficult for you to move through life.

Darvoza-information-pozn. portal

by Notes of the Wild Mistress

Do you love cleaning? You don’t have to answer, although I definitely know women for whom perfect cleanliness in the house is something like a fad. They rub, wash, and wash constantly, bringing their apartment to a sterile shine.

But the issue of order in the house, it turns out, is not as simple as it seems at first glance. Moreover, there is a psychological justification for disorder in each specific case.

How does the habit of clutter develop?

The habit of clutter: scattered books, things, unwashed dishes, often occurs in childhood. And it is not at all necessary that the mother was a slob. Quite the opposite, this situation arises much more often when the house has been perfectly clean since childhood, and the child was constantly punished and scolded for scattered toys and sloppiness, demanding strict adherence to order.

Having grown up in museum cleanliness, a child unconsciously strives to find a place where he will feel comfortable, at least in his room, in a corner, but among his personal, native disorder. He will feel the same way when childhood is left behind.

True, psychologists say that disorder is also easy, convenient way avoiding adult responsibility for your life, which allows you to demonstrate your helplessness and hope that someone will solve your problems for you. After all, since childhood, my mother took responsibility for order, and the habit of this remains for life.

Often, clutter is a way to attract attention, and quite unconsciously. Have you noticed that a person who constantly loses something, searches and fusses, attracts attention, evokes sympathy and a desire to help?

And indeed, those around them drop what they are doing and begin to help the confused one. Usually people who are not too confident in themselves act this way; they feel support and attention, which they so lack, and they often act this way instinctively, unconsciously.

Depression is the cause of a cluttered home

It also happens: when there is discomfort in the soul, a state close to depression, then this internal disorganization and disorder are reflected in your home. Then there is simply no strength or desire to do anything, to put things in order, because there is a constant feeling of devastation in the soul. This happens after a divorce, after big family and other problems.

This is very serious, because by allowing themselves to live in such conditions, people aggravate the already serious condition. In this case, putting things in order, getting rid of unnecessary old things, rearranging the house also means putting things in order within oneself. After all, you definitely need to make room for new experiences, turn a difficult page in life and feel ready to live in the present, and not in the past.

If you want to get things in order

So what to do if there is chaos around you, you have no strength, but you still want to change everything? You shouldn’t grab everything at once, starting a big “general” cleaning. You simply don’t have enough strength for it, and instead of order in the house, even greater chaos will reign, only at the same time you will completely give up.

Start small: wash the dishes, take out the trash. Plan to clear out your cabinet or kitchen shelf the next day. This way you will gradually finish cleaning, and the house will become clean and comfortable.

Find an incentive for yourself, think about what the established order will change in your life. For example, you will be able to invite friends without being embarrassed about your apartment, you will appreciate the comfort and beauty of your surroundings, you will be pleased to cook something tasty in a clean and cozy kitchen.

If you cannot find something in the rubble of things, do not rush to call the whole family for help. Don’t get angry, don’t throw things around, creating even more chaos, but gradually, as you put things away, look for yourself. If you do not excite others and demand from them increased attention, you will calm down faster, and there will be more order.

Order in the soul - order in the house

But it may also happen that you still find it difficult to free yourself from confusion. This means that you should seriously understand yourself: your emotions, fears, memories. Free your soul from the past, from worries and grievances. Freed from everything that clutters your inner world, you will also solve the problems of home chaos.

Everything is so interconnected in our lives that often the explanation difficult situations may be the simplest and vice versa. How easy it is to decide that since the house is a mess, then there is a bad housewife, incompetent and lazy. But it's not that simple. Even the mess in the house is ambiguous, as psychologists say.

Every room in our home has a symbolic meaning that influences our subconscious. Disorder and clutter in every room causes inactivity and stagnation in certain aspects of your life.

Thus, an untidy and dirty kitchen creates difficulties in food and supply, both physically and physically. spiritual level. But cleanliness, comfort and order in the kitchen will create a feeling of security and comfort that we all so need.

The living room and dining room are rooms for communicating with family, friends, and relatives. Look at these rooms carefully - they will tell you about your relationship with the outside world.

These are the rooms in which you gather with people close to you: family, friends. Clutter can turn this space into a secluded den. Look at the living room and dining room, they will tell about your relationship with the outside world: whether you are hiding from it behind a pile of garbage and unnecessary things, or putting yourself on display.

Bedrooms, a place for sleep, relaxation, intimacy, perform important function renewal of people and their relationships. Clutter in the bedroom is especially undesirable because it brings weakness and takes away, rather than replenishes, energy. If you feel very tired, be sure to tidy up this most personal space of yours, this will help you relax and move away from stress.

Lack of order and clutter in the corridor interfere with interaction different parts, not only your home, but your life too. Look at the corridor: is it well lit, is it easy to walk along? If you feel difficult in the interaction between work and family, yourself and other people, tidy up your hallway.

A messy bathroom may indicate low self-esteem and lack of attention to yourself. Decorate your bathroom, make it clean and tidy, turn it into a place where you can hide from everyone, where you will feel safe.

Our home is a place where we can take a break from influence environment, hide from negative influences, relax, be alone with yourself, your thoughts. To have such an opportunity, so that we can find ourselves, get rid of painful thoughts, there should be order and comfort in our home. Then he will settle in it good mood, joy and prosperity for the whole family.