September 23, 2025 • 12 mins
What happens when a mum posts a video of tidying her teenager’s messy bedroom? Internet outrage. Some called it enabling. Others said it was love. In this episode, Dr Justin and Kylie cut through the noise and answer the real question: should parents be tidying their teens’ rooms - or teaching responsibility another way? You’ll discover what really matters when it comes to chores, gratitude, and raising kids who contribute at home without constant conflict.
KEY POINTS:
- Why social media turned a simple act of love into a war of opinions
- The difference between helping your teen and enabling them
- How chores build gratitude, contribution, and teamwork
- Why kids don’t always see what parents do—and why that’s normal
- Practical ways to reset chores without the constant nagging
- The surprising truth: sometimes it’s okay to just tidy up
QUOTE OF THE EPISODE:
“The most important principle isn’t who cleans the room—it’s that everyone contributes.”
RESOURCES:
- Mom tidies teen's room each morning, prompting a fascinating debate | Upworthy
- I am Not the Maid – How to get 5 Star Service from the Kids at Home | HF Article
- My 13-Year-Old Doesn’t Pick up a Single Thing| HF Article
- Developmental Milestones [Introduction] | HF Article
ACTION STEPS FOR PARENTS:
- Call a short family meeting to reset chores and responsibilities.
- Use the explore–explain–empower method to get kids involved in deciding tasks.
- Focus on gratitude and contribution—not perfection.
- And if you tidy their room sometimes? That’s okay. Just don’t post it on social media.
Subscribe to the Happy Families newsletter
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:06):
A couple of months ago, I pretty much swore off
social media. I've always had a mixed relationship with it,
but I struggle with how antagonistic social media can be.
People share things that they think are going to be
wholesome and uplifting and positive and helpful, and every now
and again, well not every now and again, on a daily, minutely,
hourly basis. Whatever, there's controversy, there's provocation. Stay with us.
(00:31):
Hello is doctor Justin Colson. Welcome to the Happy Family Podcast.
I'm here with missus Happy Families, my wife and mum
to our six kids, Kylie. Today we're going to be
the voice of reason. There's a post from somebody called
Shannon Taki. She's a mom of five, she has triplets,
and she shared this video on Instagram and Facebook showing
how she makes her son's bed and picks up his clothes,
and people had feelings about it. So the text overlay
(00:53):
on the video while she's tiding up his bedroom says this,
I started doing this every morning for my teenager, not
because he won't do it, because I do everything for him,
but because teenagers are now growing up in a very
strange and complicated world, and I want him to feel
at peace when he comes home and there's this spick
and span, spotless room just in, I guess, because she
(01:14):
anticipated that there might be some backlash. She also added
this in her caption for the photo. She said, he
has his own chores and has been taught his entire
life to clean up after himself. But when he's getting
himself up early in the mornings and rushing off to school,
this is something I've come to enjoy doing for him.
This way, when he gets home, he can get his
(01:34):
homework done in his room and just relax. There's plenty
of other things Austin helps with around the house, and
I can only imagine what it's like being a teenager
in today's world. It is my job to make my
children feel at peace. So if it's picking up a
few pieces of clothes or making his bed, then I'm
more than happy to do it for him. And I
read that and I just thought this is so wholesome.
Isn't that great? But not everybody felt the same way.
(01:57):
What's your reaction when you see something like that?
Speaker 2 (02:00):
Whole heap of feelings there? The first thing is it
interests me what people feel they should share on socials well,
there's that, But secondly, why everybody has to have an
opinion And if we know that people are going to
have an opinion about it, then we can't really get
upset if we pose something and people have a different
(02:22):
opinion to ours.
Speaker 1 (02:23):
Well, in fairness to Shannon Taki, I'm not sure that
she was upset, and I'm sure that she probably expected it,
but I guess I don't really want to talk about
her and the I mean, the feedback was huge. It
was extreme on both ends, right, some people saying, you're
enabling your son, You're teaching him gender roles, He's going
to expect his wife to pick up after him as well.
(02:44):
And then there are people at the other end saying
good on your mum, like this is a really kind
and sweet thing to do, and kids are carrying a lot,
and I mean, there was just so much warmth as well.
Speaker 2 (02:55):
And that's how I feel about it. I just I
think that's the difference between you and I. When it
comes to social I don't actually read any of the comments.
I'm not interested in what other people's opinion is about
somebody's posts.
Speaker 1 (03:08):
If I ever get back on to social media, I'm
going to stop reading comments completely.
Speaker 2 (03:11):
I just don't.
Speaker 1 (03:12):
I'll share my thing and it can blow up, and
I'll just walk away. I'll be the rock walking away
from the warehouse that just exploded. After I've destroyed the enemy.
Just walk away. Don't even look back over my shoulder.
Oh there's a firewhere it didn't even notice.
Speaker 2 (03:24):
Mother to mother, heart to heart, I love that she's
actually thought about why she does what she does, and
that her actions are guided by love. I know, on
the other hand.
Speaker 1 (03:39):
I don't think her actions. Well, maybe they got it
by love. She certainly said that I reckon her actions
so guided by I want a clean house.
Speaker 2 (03:45):
Well, I was just about to say, I, on the
other hand, a guided by the fact that I need
to have a clean house. So the reality is I
don't do it every day. But when the children's rooms
get to a point where I cannot walk in there
and feel calm and peaceful, I will get in there
and I will clean it. But just like she said,
(04:06):
the kids don't have the same level of I want
to say, perception and understanding, because when I have conversations
with our children, specifically about what it feels like to
walk into a clean home, they can absolutely, absolutely tell
me how nice it is and how calming it is,
(04:27):
and how peaceful, and how it just feels so good
to come home to. But in their own space, they
haven't yet worked that out. They just think it's all
of their stuff, and so they find comfort in their stuff.
But when they come home and their room is clean,
they love it, and they will tell me that they
love it.
Speaker 1 (04:45):
We have a daughter who gets up very very early
every morning. She's off to a class before school, like,
she's out of the house at six am, and often
you will spend some time in her room making it
tidy so that when she comes home the room's tidy.
And that doesn't enable her, that doesn't make her take
it for it's just the reality that she's not going
to get up early enough that she can pull her
whole bedroom together and have it reset before she starts
(05:06):
the day. For you, it's important you like the house
being clean and tidy, and so that's what you do.
So there's a social media aspect, Kylie, where people have
outrage and people share their opinions. What I'm interested in
is having a productive conversation about kids and chores and
their contribution around the house. What actually matters and to me,
(05:30):
there are two things that are really key here. The
first is do our children express and experience gratitude for
the things that parents do? Do they have a win?
Are they able to recognize that Mum or dad or
their care are going out of the way to cook
a meal or drive them somewhere or do all those
things that need to be done for me. That's vital
(05:52):
and as parents, it's our job to help them to
do that in a way that isn't overbearing, and also
in a way that recognizes the Developmentally, kids will just
take it for granted and are not supposed to recognize
and see everything that we're doing. The second thing is
getting their contribution, making sure that they're having a go.
(06:13):
And while they don't necessarily do the things that we
want them to do all the time, like they're not
cleaning the room, for example, what are they doing in
the living room or in the yard, or in the
kitchen or.
Speaker 2 (06:26):
They have regular chores where they are actually contributing to
the house. Is this part of their daily schedule?
Speaker 1 (06:34):
That's exactly what I'm getting at. Yeah, And it sounds
like in this case certainly that's what's going on. There's
this gendered element that comes into it as well. And
I get that, but I also think that as you
get older and you find yourself in a relationship. Let's
assume that this boy grows up and he finds himself
a girl. Because all the conversations were about him and
(06:54):
his future wife. There's going to be a division of
labor in the home. Not everybody is going to do everything.
Maybe they'll do a perfect fifty to fifty. You clean
the bedroom Monday to Thursday, and I clean the bedroom
from Friday to Saturday. I just I don't think Friday, Saturday, Sunday.
I don't think that's going to happen what usually happened.
Speaker 2 (07:12):
But I don't think anyone wants that neither neither do I.
The greatest contribution that I have experienced in my life
is when somebody is willing to just work side.
Speaker 1 (07:23):
By side with me, right right, whether.
Speaker 2 (07:25):
That's you in an employment situation, there's a big thing
that needs to happen, and just knowing that you've got
teammates that are there beside you and you're working towards
a common goal.
Speaker 1 (07:34):
Let's get up to our elbows in this and make
it up. I love cleaning our bedroom with you. I
really like making our bed with you. I just can't
make it as well as you. But the other thing
is there's going to be different people doing different things
for work at different times. So maybe it just makes
sense that one person does kin'd of look after the
cleaning up of the bedroom and the living room in
the kitchen, and the other person does look after the X,
(07:56):
Y and Z. I think in these social media situations
people get really really worried about the future, and unnecessarily so.
And the best claim that I have on that is
that when I look at our daughter Chanel, who is
now in her mid twenties and is married with her
own child.
Speaker 2 (08:15):
And could not keep a clean room she had she
had the messiest room of all of our children.
Speaker 1 (08:20):
I think her room was messier than the other kids combined.
And they're not tidy by any stretch. And now she's
a wonderful a wonderful mum and homemaker and she really
relishes having things in order. She's organized. It's like she
figured it out, she worked it out, and with her
husband Jared, they just make it work. I'm sure they
(08:41):
have a little bit of conflict now and then around
stuff who's not doing this, or who should be doing that?
But as you get older, you work it out.
Speaker 2 (08:49):
As I've talked to mums over the years, the number
one complaint that they have had is the acknowledgment that
their partners are not contributors in the home, whether it
be in the kitchen, cooking, or just doing the household
chores to keep the house maintained and functioning. It's a
really big challenge that so many couple's experience because there's
(09:14):
this kind of I don't know, gendered expectation. Girls do
the cleaning and boys do the earning.
Speaker 1 (09:19):
Yeah, And maybe that's why I'm relaxed about it because
in our situation that hasn't been the case, and we
know many good families where people just pitch in and
do what they need to do. When I his stories
like that, it does worry me, and it also helps
me to understand why some of those comments are saying
what they're saying. But there's a way around this as well.
The simple way around this is for us as a
(09:41):
family to sit down and have a family meeting and explore.
And we do this with our kids all the time.
They get sick of the chores, they stop doing the chores.
They start complaining, I hope feeding the dogs? What do
os have to feed the dogs? And so we sit
down on a Sunday, we pull out a treat or
two and we say, all right, we need to talk
about chores because we're having a little bit of conflict
and it's not working. And then it's really simple, wear
are you up to with the chores? What chores are
(10:02):
you willing to do? How do you feel about this one,
this one, and this one. Here's the thing we've all
got to contribute, So what are we going to do?
And it's an explore, explain in power conversation. It takes
about ten or fifteen minutes the kids reading the chores,
they decide that they're going to rotate who's feeding the
dog and who's I don't know, vacuuming the floor or whatever.
And within fifteen minutes they've got their new list of chores.
(10:23):
And you and I both know that in three weeks
time they're going to be complaining about the chores they've
got and they hate them, and we're going to have
to do it again. But that is the detail. The
most important principle here is contribution, and everyone's contributing that's
the conversation that you need to have.
Speaker 2 (10:39):
I saw a post the other day and a mum
of six put up six things that she does to
simplify her daily running of family life with six kids,
and one of her points was the acknowledgment that she
doesn't do a weekly chor chart. It's a yearly chorchut.
(11:00):
I love that I don't have to remember who's doing
what job because they're doing it for a whole year.
Speaker 1 (11:06):
Can you imagine the complaints about I mean, the main
one is feeding the dog rock can we'd have to
deal with like a less.
Speaker 2 (11:12):
Dog that everyone begged to have eleven and a.
Speaker 1 (11:14):
Half months of complaining I don't want to feed the
dog again.
Speaker 2 (11:18):
But you also acknowledge that they perfect that job. By
the time they've done it for twelve months, they have
they've really really got it under wraps.
Speaker 1 (11:28):
All right. Explore what the kids feel about the chores
and their contribution. Explained that the contribution needs to be
made and empower the kids to come up with some chores, responsibilities, roles, tasks,
jobs that they're willing to do as their contribution to
the family. And by the way, if you want the
kids to have a clean bedroom and they just can't
get it done for any number of reasons. Do it yourself.
(11:51):
It's okay, just don't post it on social media. The
Happy Family's podcast is produced by Justin Roland from Bridge Media.
Love you, Justin, Thanks so much for your help and
for more information about how to make your family happier,
We'd love for you to visit us at happyfamilies dot
com dot a
A couple of months ago, I pretty much swore off
social media. I've always had a mixed relationship with it,
but I struggle with how antagonistic social media can be.
People share things that they think are going to be
wholesome and uplifting and positive and helpful, and every now
and again, well not every now and again, on a daily, minutely,
hourly basis. Whatever, there's controversy, there's provocation. Stay with us.
(00:31):
Hello is doctor Justin Colson. Welcome to the Happy Family Podcast.
I'm here with missus Happy Families, my wife and mum
to our six kids, Kylie. Today we're going to be
the voice of reason. There's a post from somebody called
Shannon Taki. She's a mom of five, she has triplets,
and she shared this video on Instagram and Facebook showing
how she makes her son's bed and picks up his clothes,
and people had feelings about it. So the text overlay
(00:53):
on the video while she's tiding up his bedroom says this,
I started doing this every morning for my teenager, not
because he won't do it, because I do everything for him,
but because teenagers are now growing up in a very
strange and complicated world, and I want him to feel
at peace when he comes home and there's this spick
and span, spotless room just in, I guess, because she
(01:14):
anticipated that there might be some backlash. She also added
this in her caption for the photo. She said, he
has his own chores and has been taught his entire
life to clean up after himself. But when he's getting
himself up early in the mornings and rushing off to school,
this is something I've come to enjoy doing for him.
This way, when he gets home, he can get his
(01:34):
homework done in his room and just relax. There's plenty
of other things Austin helps with around the house, and
I can only imagine what it's like being a teenager
in today's world. It is my job to make my
children feel at peace. So if it's picking up a
few pieces of clothes or making his bed, then I'm
more than happy to do it for him. And I
read that and I just thought this is so wholesome.
Isn't that great? But not everybody felt the same way.
(01:57):
What's your reaction when you see something like that?
Speaker 2 (02:00):
Whole heap of feelings there? The first thing is it
interests me what people feel they should share on socials well,
there's that, But secondly, why everybody has to have an
opinion And if we know that people are going to
have an opinion about it, then we can't really get
upset if we pose something and people have a different
(02:22):
opinion to ours.
Speaker 1 (02:23):
Well, in fairness to Shannon Taki, I'm not sure that
she was upset, and I'm sure that she probably expected it,
but I guess I don't really want to talk about
her and the I mean, the feedback was huge. It
was extreme on both ends, right, some people saying, you're
enabling your son, You're teaching him gender roles, He's going
to expect his wife to pick up after him as well.
(02:44):
And then there are people at the other end saying
good on your mum, like this is a really kind
and sweet thing to do, and kids are carrying a lot,
and I mean, there was just so much warmth as well.
Speaker 2 (02:55):
And that's how I feel about it. I just I
think that's the difference between you and I. When it
comes to social I don't actually read any of the comments.
I'm not interested in what other people's opinion is about
somebody's posts.
Speaker 1 (03:08):
If I ever get back on to social media, I'm
going to stop reading comments completely.
Speaker 2 (03:11):
I just don't.
Speaker 1 (03:12):
I'll share my thing and it can blow up, and
I'll just walk away. I'll be the rock walking away
from the warehouse that just exploded. After I've destroyed the enemy.
Just walk away. Don't even look back over my shoulder.
Oh there's a firewhere it didn't even notice.
Speaker 2 (03:24):
Mother to mother, heart to heart, I love that she's
actually thought about why she does what she does, and
that her actions are guided by love. I know, on
the other hand.
Speaker 1 (03:39):
I don't think her actions. Well, maybe they got it
by love. She certainly said that I reckon her actions
so guided by I want a clean house.
Speaker 2 (03:45):
Well, I was just about to say, I, on the
other hand, a guided by the fact that I need
to have a clean house. So the reality is I
don't do it every day. But when the children's rooms
get to a point where I cannot walk in there
and feel calm and peaceful, I will get in there
and I will clean it. But just like she said,
(04:06):
the kids don't have the same level of I want
to say, perception and understanding, because when I have conversations
with our children, specifically about what it feels like to
walk into a clean home, they can absolutely, absolutely tell
me how nice it is and how calming it is,
(04:27):
and how peaceful, and how it just feels so good
to come home to. But in their own space, they
haven't yet worked that out. They just think it's all
of their stuff, and so they find comfort in their stuff.
But when they come home and their room is clean,
they love it, and they will tell me that they
love it.
Speaker 1 (04:45):
We have a daughter who gets up very very early
every morning. She's off to a class before school, like,
she's out of the house at six am, and often
you will spend some time in her room making it
tidy so that when she comes home the room's tidy.
And that doesn't enable her, that doesn't make her take
it for it's just the reality that she's not going
to get up early enough that she can pull her
whole bedroom together and have it reset before she starts
(05:06):
the day. For you, it's important you like the house
being clean and tidy, and so that's what you do.
So there's a social media aspect, Kylie, where people have
outrage and people share their opinions. What I'm interested in
is having a productive conversation about kids and chores and
their contribution around the house. What actually matters and to me,
(05:30):
there are two things that are really key here. The
first is do our children express and experience gratitude for
the things that parents do? Do they have a win?
Are they able to recognize that Mum or dad or
their care are going out of the way to cook
a meal or drive them somewhere or do all those
things that need to be done for me. That's vital
(05:52):
and as parents, it's our job to help them to
do that in a way that isn't overbearing, and also
in a way that recognizes the Developmentally, kids will just
take it for granted and are not supposed to recognize
and see everything that we're doing. The second thing is
getting their contribution, making sure that they're having a go.
(06:13):
And while they don't necessarily do the things that we
want them to do all the time, like they're not
cleaning the room, for example, what are they doing in
the living room or in the yard, or in the
kitchen or.
Speaker 2 (06:26):
They have regular chores where they are actually contributing to
the house. Is this part of their daily schedule?
Speaker 1 (06:34):
That's exactly what I'm getting at. Yeah, And it sounds
like in this case certainly that's what's going on. There's
this gendered element that comes into it as well. And
I get that, but I also think that as you
get older and you find yourself in a relationship. Let's
assume that this boy grows up and he finds himself
a girl. Because all the conversations were about him and
(06:54):
his future wife. There's going to be a division of
labor in the home. Not everybody is going to do everything.
Maybe they'll do a perfect fifty to fifty. You clean
the bedroom Monday to Thursday, and I clean the bedroom
from Friday to Saturday. I just I don't think Friday, Saturday, Sunday.
I don't think that's going to happen what usually happened.
Speaker 2 (07:12):
But I don't think anyone wants that neither neither do I.
The greatest contribution that I have experienced in my life
is when somebody is willing to just work side.
Speaker 1 (07:23):
By side with me, right right, whether.
Speaker 2 (07:25):
That's you in an employment situation, there's a big thing
that needs to happen, and just knowing that you've got
teammates that are there beside you and you're working towards
a common goal.
Speaker 1 (07:34):
Let's get up to our elbows in this and make
it up. I love cleaning our bedroom with you. I
really like making our bed with you. I just can't
make it as well as you. But the other thing
is there's going to be different people doing different things
for work at different times. So maybe it just makes
sense that one person does kin'd of look after the
cleaning up of the bedroom and the living room in
the kitchen, and the other person does look after the X,
(07:56):
Y and Z. I think in these social media situations
people get really really worried about the future, and unnecessarily so.
And the best claim that I have on that is
that when I look at our daughter Chanel, who is
now in her mid twenties and is married with her
own child.
Speaker 2 (08:15):
And could not keep a clean room she had she
had the messiest room of all of our children.
Speaker 1 (08:20):
I think her room was messier than the other kids combined.
And they're not tidy by any stretch. And now she's
a wonderful a wonderful mum and homemaker and she really
relishes having things in order. She's organized. It's like she
figured it out, she worked it out, and with her
husband Jared, they just make it work. I'm sure they
(08:41):
have a little bit of conflict now and then around
stuff who's not doing this, or who should be doing that?
But as you get older, you work it out.
Speaker 2 (08:49):
As I've talked to mums over the years, the number
one complaint that they have had is the acknowledgment that
their partners are not contributors in the home, whether it
be in the kitchen, cooking, or just doing the household
chores to keep the house maintained and functioning. It's a
really big challenge that so many couple's experience because there's
(09:14):
this kind of I don't know, gendered expectation. Girls do
the cleaning and boys do the earning.
Speaker 1 (09:19):
Yeah, And maybe that's why I'm relaxed about it because
in our situation that hasn't been the case, and we
know many good families where people just pitch in and
do what they need to do. When I his stories
like that, it does worry me, and it also helps
me to understand why some of those comments are saying
what they're saying. But there's a way around this as well.
The simple way around this is for us as a
(09:41):
family to sit down and have a family meeting and explore.
And we do this with our kids all the time.
They get sick of the chores, they stop doing the chores.
They start complaining, I hope feeding the dogs? What do
os have to feed the dogs? And so we sit
down on a Sunday, we pull out a treat or
two and we say, all right, we need to talk
about chores because we're having a little bit of conflict
and it's not working. And then it's really simple, wear
are you up to with the chores? What chores are
(10:02):
you willing to do? How do you feel about this one,
this one, and this one. Here's the thing we've all
got to contribute, So what are we going to do?
And it's an explore, explain in power conversation. It takes
about ten or fifteen minutes the kids reading the chores,
they decide that they're going to rotate who's feeding the
dog and who's I don't know, vacuuming the floor or whatever.
And within fifteen minutes they've got their new list of chores.
(10:23):
And you and I both know that in three weeks
time they're going to be complaining about the chores they've
got and they hate them, and we're going to have
to do it again. But that is the detail. The
most important principle here is contribution, and everyone's contributing that's
the conversation that you need to have.
Speaker 2 (10:39):
I saw a post the other day and a mum
of six put up six things that she does to
simplify her daily running of family life with six kids,
and one of her points was the acknowledgment that she
doesn't do a weekly chor chart. It's a yearly chorchut.
(11:00):
I love that I don't have to remember who's doing
what job because they're doing it for a whole year.
Speaker 1 (11:06):
Can you imagine the complaints about I mean, the main
one is feeding the dog rock can we'd have to
deal with like a less.
Speaker 2 (11:12):
Dog that everyone begged to have eleven and a.
Speaker 1 (11:14):
Half months of complaining I don't want to feed the
dog again.
Speaker 2 (11:18):
But you also acknowledge that they perfect that job. By
the time they've done it for twelve months, they have
they've really really got it under wraps.
Speaker 1 (11:28):
All right. Explore what the kids feel about the chores
and their contribution. Explained that the contribution needs to be
made and empower the kids to come up with some chores, responsibilities, roles, tasks,
jobs that they're willing to do as their contribution to
the family. And by the way, if you want the
kids to have a clean bedroom and they just can't
get it done for any number of reasons. Do it yourself.
(11:51):
It's okay, just don't post it on social media. The
Happy Family's podcast is produced by Justin Roland from Bridge Media.
Love you, Justin, Thanks so much for your help and
for more information about how to make your family happier,
We'd love for you to visit us at happyfamilies dot
com dot a
Popular Podcasts
On Purpose with Jay Shetty
I’m Jay Shetty host of On Purpose the worlds #1 Mental Health podcast and I’m so grateful you found us. I started this podcast 5 years ago to invite you into conversations and workshops that are designed to help make you happier, healthier and more healed. I believe that when you (yes you) feel seen, heard and understood you’re able to deal with relationship struggles, work challenges and life’s ups and downs with more ease and grace. I interview experts, celebrities, thought leaders and athletes so that we can grow our mindset, build better habits and uncover a side of them we’ve never seen before. New episodes every Monday and Friday. Your support means the world to me and I don’t take it for granted — click the follow button and leave a review to help us spread the love with On Purpose. I can’t wait for you to listen to your first or 500th episode!
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.
The Joe Rogan Experience
The official podcast of comedian Joe Rogan.