When it comes to keeping your kids’ bedrooms
and tidy, while they may want to accumulate hundreds of toys and other items, the less they own, the better it is for you! Trying to encourage children to use the toys they have and to not keep buying new ones, is easier if started from a young age, but if they insist on having the latest toy or gadget, then you must insist that they are kept in suitable storage containers when not being used. If they don’t follow the rules, they lose a toy, it’s as simple as that!
Here are some other tips and tricks for keeping your kids’ bedrooms as clean and tidy as possible:
Give your kids a sense of order
If you can get your kids to understand and follow the rule that one thing follows another, you should be able to keep their room relatively tidy. For example, if they make their bed, then they can choose a toy or game to play with. Once they’ve finished playing with one item, they don’t get another until that one goes back in its proper place, and so on. Having large storage boxes for toys and games is a simple way of reducing clutter and keeping everything in one, safe place.
Give them a helping hand
If they’re not keen to clean and tidy their room alone, you may need to give them a little support to get the job done. While ideally, you want your kids to tackle their room alone (so that you can get on with other things), giving them a helping hand can encourage them to do the job properly, and make them feel less as if they’re being punished in some way!
Teach them the importance of making their bed
A made bed can make a room instantly look tidier, and if you only succeed in getting your kids to do one thing around the home, make it this! After all, making their bed isn’t a hard job, and even pre-schoolers can learn to do it.
When giving instructions, make them clear
If you tell your child to simply go and clean their room, the chances are that they won’t really understand what that entails, and will either flounder around doing next to nothing, or simply give up and risk facing your wrath! For younger children, you’ll need to show them what you want the room to look like, and give clear instructions on exactly how they should achieve this. They should also be made to understand what the implications of not cleaning their room entail; will they lose the right to play outside, not get their favorite treat to eat, or have their cell phone confiscated?
Lead by example
If you keep a clean and tidy home and set a positive example for your kids by putting things back where you got them from, and cleaning up messes as soon as you make them for example, they’ll likely follow suit.
If you have a lot of kids in your household, and they’re at an age where they’re not secretive about their belongings or require a lot of privacy, you could hire a cleaning service and have them keep the bedrooms clean and tidy. Ultimately, you want your kids to clean their own rooms, but sometimes, you just want the rooms to be done and it really doesn’t matter who does it!
