A teddy bear hanging out of a suitcase

Doom Boxes

ADHD, Autism, Behaviours by Jen

If you aren’t familiar with Doom Boxes, and you regularly encounter issues with tidiness in your home, your life is about to change… Probably because it’s been the spring school holidays here in Australia, I’m hearing and seeing more and more exasperated parents freaking out over the state of their kids’ bedrooms. When they’re busy with school and extracurricular activities and homework, bedrooms can be chaotic enough; but when certain neurodivergencies bunker down in their safe place largely uninterrupted for a solid week or two, that can be… a lot.

The questions range from “Why can’t they just put away one thing before they get out the next?” to “Why don’t they develop better habits? I’ve been asking for years!” to “How do I get them to tidy it up because I kept ending up having to do it myself!” and everything in between.

A number of these have already been addressed to some degree here:

Why Does it Need to Be Tidy?

Is tidiness that important?

Hygiene is important. And when it comes to neurodivergent people who find general tidiness difficult to achieve, it can be important to make this distinction. Cleanliness is necessary, because hygiene is important. But being untidy isn’t always the same as being unclean.

If the person who is responsible for cleaning a space is able to adequately access that space to clean it on a regular basis, the level of untidiness in between can be largely irrelevant.

Setting Some Rules

A few rules you could consider setting with your child might include:

  • Family spaces aren’t for chaos. Keep the untidiness to bedrooms, playrooms, kids’ living spaces, etc.
  • All unhygienic products (food waste, tissues, sanitary items, used bandaids, etc) must go in a garbage bin. This might mean setting an alarm to remind them to do a lap of their space each day to achieve this. There might be guidelines as to whether that bin lives inside or outside their room (perhaps one in their room, that you agree to empty daily).
  • All cups, plates, utensils, etc, must be returned to the kitchen once a day. Again, an alarm might help facilitate this.
  • Dirty washing needs to be in the laundry basket in time for washing days. This might include you reminding them it’s washing day.
  • Room will be tidy enough to be cleaned on a regular basis (ie, once a week).

Interim Measures

There are methods that can be useful for people struggling with executive function, who aren’t particularly keen on their own untidiness.

  • A daily lap to deal with any garbage or washing can help.
  • Encouraging them to keep the number of items required on their bed to a minimum reduces the mess when the bed isn’t made, and the amount of time required to make the bed if they choose to.
  • Storage bins for “work in progress” art, craft, and writing pieces.
  • Ensuring everything has a known home, even if it doesn’t always get put back there.
  • Making sure there is enough space for the intended items, eg, that the number of books that live in the bedroom would actually all fit on the bookcase if put away. If it’s impossible to actually put everything away even when you try, it’s hard to feel motivated to attempt it!

And, the winner for so many neurodivergent people, especially those with ADHD:

DOOM Boxes

DOOM: Don’t Organise, Only Move

Doom Boxes are the “second drawer in the kitchen” of each room. The place where things go to die. No, not really. The home for broken things, half finished things, things that don’t have a place, odd socks that are waiting for their friend to emerge on the next laundry day, hairbands, fidget toys, freebies, nice rocks… you get the idea.

One of my daughters has a Doom Box under her bed (Tip: make sure Doom Boxes are the right shape and size for where they would be most conveniently kept, so they’re not an additional hazard). Whenever she wants to do something in her bedroom and the space she wants to use is a mess, she scoops everything that’s in the way into the Doom Box.

I tend to clean the bedrooms on the same day every week, so the day before I remind my kids. Sometimes this means she’ll tidy up, attack the Doom Box, and it’s all done. Other times it means the Doom Box is pushed to breaking point so I can clean, and we attack it together.

Dismantling The Doom Boxes

When it’s time to empty the Doom Boxes, whether that’s a weekly job for a bedroom tidy, or a craft supplies collection you decide to sort out during a school holiday, there are some very easy ways to approach. As was touched on in Bite Sized Pieces setting some rules to prevent distraction helps.

Our stages for emptying the Doom Box are:

  1. Put a bin within reach
  2. Place a washing basket or cardboard box near the door
  3. Tip out the Doom Box (sense check first for half-finished drinks! And do it gently… no-one wants a sea of Lego pieces spilling across the entire room).
  4. Sort into four piles
    • Garbage
    • Things that belong in another room
    • Things that have a home in the room you’re in
    • Things that belong in the room you’re in but don’t have a home
  5. Put garbage in the bin, and move the bin (to its home if it lives in that room, and to the door if it lives elsewhere in the house)
  6. Scoop all the things that live in other rooms to the basket and move that to the door
  7. Put away the things that have homes
  8. Find homes for the other things
  9. Wipe out the Doom Box, and restore it to its home
  10. “Drive” the washing basket around the house depositing things where they need to be

Over time you might notice your child becoming naturally more mindful of what goes into the Doom Box in the first place. Less garbage, because they know that’ll end up in the bin anyway. Perhaps fewer things from other rooms, because it’s easier to put it at the door in the first place.

Lots of doom, not so much gloom. It helps.

PS. KMart usually has a wide range of very affordable containers, baskets, boxes, etc, to choose from. Sometimes having a Doom Box that appeals because it is their favourite colour, fits perfectly between their bed and their desk, has a dinosaur on it, has a lid that makes everything “disappear”, or is a nice fluffy texture, makes all the difference!

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