Parenting: Teaching your Child to Organize their Room

As parents we have the responsibility of taking care of our child’s emotional, physical, spiritual, and mental development. Helping your child to keep his or her room organized and neat is vital for their physical safety as well as their emotional sense of well-being and also contributes towards a healthy mental state.

Step 1:

Eliminate: Go through your child’s clothing and toys at least twice a year, before their birthday and before Christmas. Work with your child on deciding which items they no longer have use for and have outgrown. I have always trained my children to give to the less fortunate before they acquire new things, for the following reasons:

• It creates a giving spirit in your child.
• You also make room for the new toys. (A home for everything.)
• You are teaching your child how important the idea of one-in and one-out is. This will give them the tools as adults to prevent clutter in their homes.

Step 2:

Enhance: By grouping like items together and organizing them in relevant storage containers according to the proximity of the child allowing them to easily access their things.

1. Help your child to organize their artwork in a neat manner by purchasing a  Child’s Artwork Frame such as Lil’ DaVinci Art Frame from Amazon. This boxed frame is used to house up to 50 works of art, making it easy to rotate the art on display.
2. Colorful labeled boxes are handy for smaller items that your child may want to keep stored on a shelf or in a book-case.
3. Larger items such as building blocks and Lego can be sorted into labeled transparent containers.
4. A Window Bench can have attractive baskets neatly tucked away.
5. A Kids Storage Unit contains colorful bins that can be used to store separated groups of items.
6. Under the bed drawers are useful for folded clothing or undergarments.
7. A  Netted Storage Hammock is very useful for getting those extra stuffed toys off the floor and utilizing some higher wall space.
8. The Desk or Art Zone should have all the stationery sorted  into small labeled drawer organizers.
9. Days –of – the – Week Hanging Closet Organizer is a wonderful way to organize a younger child’s outfits for the week.  If you have a little princess, that likes to choose her own wardrobe, then allow her to do so in advance, by placing each outfit of choice in a different day of the week.

Step 3:

Establish:Be sure to view the room from your child’s perspective. It may mean that you have to get down on your hands and knees to see what it looks like from a smaller child’s view-point. If your child is able to get to his toys easily enough, then he will be able to return them to their “HOME” on the shelf easily enough.

1. Because of the height issue you want to ensure that you organize their toys from low down moving up.
2. All high priority toys need to be contained at a level that is easy for them to reach. The lower priority toys should get stacked higher up as they would require those less frequently.
3. Every container, bin, drawer, crate, basket, or box should be labeled indicating what is contained in that space. If your child is too small to read, then consider laminating some appropriate pictures to indicate what is in each storage container.
4. If your child is inundated with too many gifts at Christmas or birthday. Then consider hiding some of those toys out of reach. After a period of time, especially during the long summer break, when your child  tells you that he is bored; take down the stored packages and your child will have a renewed appreciation for them.
5. Create  a routine for your child by instilling in him:
   • The importance of cleaning up immediately after a task has been finished. 
   • End of the day pack away is very important, as it gives your child a maximum framework as to how long the mess is allowed in his room.
   • Instill in him the importance of packing away a container and placing it back on the shelf, before removing the next container of toys. This prevents the room from becoming so overwhelmingly messy that the child will not know where to start clearing away.

When a parent is able to work alongside their child, assisting them through the organizational process frequently, then these habits will eventually, over time, be instilled in your child. These three steps will become as natural to them as brushing their teeth twice daily or wearing a seat belt while driving a car.  This is just another aspect of parenting that we need to follow through with.

Advertisement

• Posted in: Children ♦ Family ♦ Home ♦ Stress and Clutter
• Tagged: Children organizing, containing, Labeling, organize;, Teaching organizing