Unless you’ve been living under a rock, you’ve heard of or have seen the Netflix hit, Tidying Up with Marie Kondo. In the reality show, a professional organizer from Japan comes into a family’s cluttered home and transforms it into a beautifully organized living space. She also leaves the family with many useful tips to maintain this organization.
These tips can be difficult for adults to follow, so how in the world can we expect kids to be tidy and to keep their rooms clean? In this blog post, we’ll show you seven ways to teach messy kids to maintain a tidy room and be organized overall. Let’s dive in!
Set a Good Example
Anyone with kids can tell you that they follow what you do more than what you say. So, if you want your kids to be tidy and keep their room clean (as well as other areas of the house) you have to be tidy and keep your room clean. This means setting up simple systems for yourself and making sure you have the right tools like storage baskets, bins, and shelves so the mess doesn’t end up on the floor.
Your kids will notice how you keep a tidy room and began mimicking that behavior. This is the first step in teaching them to be less messy. Model the behavior you want them to perform.
Show them how to clean the first few times
You have to teach children everything from how to hold their bottles to how to tie their shoes. Teaching them to clean up the room and other areas of the house is no different. To teach them how to keep their room clean, help them the first few times. Show them where to put their clothes and toys and make sure to explain what you’re doing while you’re doing it.
If your kids are old enough to read, consider labeling the storage bins and other items to make it easy for them when they start to clean up the room on their own. This is not only a fun time of bonding for you and the kids, they’ll get hands-on experience keeping a tidy room.
Allow them to decide where some things should go
It’s easy to want to make every decision for your child, especially when it comes to cleaning. But giving kids a little autonomy actually makes them more responsible. So, in the case of teaching them to maintain a clean bedroom and to keep other parts of the house clean, let your kids decide where some of their things go. This can be their toys, their books, or even their PJs.
Let go of the reins a little and your kids be involved in the decision as to where to put their things when they clean up the room or another area of the house. If they are a part of this process, they are more likely to want to put things away. They are also pretty intuitive is to where to put things, and the more they do it the better they will get at keeping a tidy room.
Use clear toy bins
Store kids’ toys in clear containers. That way, it will be easy for your kids to see how full each container is and to quickly sort the containers properly if they get out of hand. Even when kids know where things go, it can be hard for them to actually put their things there.
To encourage your kids to maintain a clean bedroom, and to keep the rest of your house clean, leave them with no excuse for not knowing where things go. Clear containers and bins are a great way to keep everyone on the same page.
Make organization easy with easy-to-reach hooks, hangers, and labels
Provide your kids with a few hooks in their room to hang hats, partially worn clothing, or even a sweater, sweatshirt, or coat. This not only makes hanging things up really easy, but it can be a really cute way of adding a pop of color or decorative touch to the room while also creating more drawer space.
Labels are another great way to help your kids keep their room clean and other areas of the house. Dresser drawers with words or a picture of what goes in each one are helpful. This is how to deal with kids who are not old enough to read yet. All kids can look at pictures and put things in the correct places.
Set a certain time for tidying each day
Just like you set a time for your kids to eat and take their naps, scheduling a set time for them to clean is a great way to teach your messy kids to be tidy. While they may fuss a little, children thrive off of structure. You give them free rein and they’ll end up unfocused and all over the place.
You can remind them verbally each day that it’s time to clean, or (for older children), you can hang a chore chart on the refrigerator reminding your kids what time to clean up and what to clean up.
So, set a time each day for cleaning. It can be after lunch or after their nap. It’s also helpful to set how long you and the kids will clean. It can be 5 or 10 minutes or even less depending on the age of your kids. Knowing that there’s a set time each day that the kids will clean will relieve you of a lot of stress and create much-needed order.
Celebrate small victories
Last but not least, when your kids clean up without asking (even if it isn’t perfect), celebrate. This can be giving them a treat, letting them stay up a little longer, or even buying them a toy. You don’t want to do this every time but in the beginning, while they’re still learning, reward their good behavior, especially when they do it without asking.
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