How can your children learn from their messes, or better yet, from cleaning their messes?

Parenting Through Natural Consequences

I recently read a Chicago Tribune article about a family where the parents allowed their kids to live in the squalor they created in their rooms rather than making their kids actually clean their rooms. The motive was to allow their kids to experience the natural consequences of their actions.

Creating Teachable Moments

I would say there are better ways to accomplish this. Besides the obvious physical health hazards, I think there is a case to be made that there might be some mental health and social hazards as well. Kids may not see the natural consequences of living in squalor because they are living in the otherwise orderly proximity of their parents and the rest of their family.

But what happens when they become adults? Will their neighbors have the same degree of understanding?

Image from Pixabay