We have two daughters one 18 and one 15 and we are really struggling with the battles that take place on a daily basis to just get them to tidy up after themselves.  Everywhere they go in the house they leave a mess,  their bedrooms are very untidy (but I don't both them with tidying up unless we are cleaning the house usually every 3 weeks), they leave food and glasses on the units in the lounge room when watch TV, they leave wet towels on the floor, the list is endless.   Whilst we are happy to keep asking them to tidy round (we don't do it for them) the frustration is immense when they continue not to do it when asked!  When ask why they don't do it they say it is not important to them and why are we so strict!   We don't consider ourselves 'strict' parents however we do have standards and keeping the house tidy is one of them.  According to Sophie (the 15 year old) we have no empathy, we always what to try and fix things and we always play devils advocate in any conversations we have!  In the words of our 18 year old, Lauren, we are psycho's because she doesn't see the importance of what we ask of her...  when we challenge them it seems like we are in the wrong asking for them to do something which is just normal.   We wouldn't go quite as far as saying it is bullying but on most occasions we feel like we are being abused by just asking for them to do the basics in life i.e. clean up after themselves.   It is hard to explain on a forum what happens on a daily basis, most days we either don't speak to either of them because we are fed with the confrontation or we ask them to tidy up and then it gets ugly!!  Rolling of the eyes, walking away, just not doing what we have asked, so we have to ask again and again or at the very extreme doing it ourselves as it is probably a health hazard and the house needs to be relatively clean and tidy.   We are at the point now where we need some help because my husband and I are starting to argue between ourselves and the atmosphere is horribly in the house - slamming of doors, coming home to silence or going out to get away from it then all we talk about is them, how we can sort it...   Any help so gratefully received.  I / we would like to attend a course to get some help as to where to go from here as I am scared I will loose my husband and or the Children because home life is at rock bottom...    Thanks  ... View more