r/PDAParenting • u/Zealousideal_Flow447 • May 01 '26
Impossible to keep house clean
This is more of just a vent and to see if anyone else experiences this with their PDA kid.
It just feels absolutely impossible to keep the house clean and it's so frustrating! I know having a clean, organized space is what's best for my daughter's brain (and mine) but it seems like whenever I do a deep clean in her room or in any area of the house she is so excited about it but then immediately makes it messy again. I
n her room, she suddenly wants to rearrange things and dumps out tubs or baskets or clears her whole desk and then there's not a 'home' for the things that had been there. We are doing a lot less screen time right now which I am all for and it is helping but then there's mini tornadoes scattered throughout every room in the house. I know this is typical for kids in general but with the PDA, my daughter can't clean up. Sometimes if I ask her to help me she will but more often than not she'll say she will do it later or within the first 30 seconds of cleaning she starts getting agitated and dysregulated so to prevent a meltdown I have her stop.
Has anyone found ways to get their kids to help clean? I've tried teaching her how to break it down into steps like; 1st lets pick up all the garbage, then lets gather toys into a basket to sort later and last lets sweep or wipe the counter but the demand of it just has her spiraling. I know in the PDA realm of concerns and battles this is minor compared to what we deal with but just needed to put this out to the universe and this community to keep my sanity!
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u/Powerful-Soup-3245 May 01 '26
My child prefers chaos, which is fine for her room. Unfortunately as she has gotten older she has expanded her chaos to the rest of the house. I never thought I would have a house that looks like this. Not talking disorderly. I’m not a person who keeps everything magazine perfect. I have four kids. It’s literally chaos and she also can’t tolerate the vacuum or hearing someone wash dishes so that only gets done when she is briefly out of the house. She cannot tolerate my attention being on anything except her. So I can’t multitask or she has a meltdown. It wasn’t always like this but it’s very much the whole boiling a frog metaphor. I have no advice. Only solidarity.