TIP #7: GIVE KIDS AGE APPROPRIATE CLEAN UP TASKS
The mess was a combination of books and toys. Beckett loves his books, but he is still young enough that he has a hard time getting all of his books back on his shelf with the spines facing forward and without pushing some books off the back of the shelf. So when we clean up his room, I put away the books, and he puts away the toys.
Beckett’s books don’t go in any special order on his shelves, which makes it quick and easy to put them away. As much as I love to organize, it’s important to be realistic about the level of organization that you can maintain. There is a part of me {the part my husband thinks is crazy} that wants to group his books by topic or color, but the fact is that I just don’t have time to reorganize them in such a detailed manner every single time I put them away. Going back to tip 3 – I have to resist the urge to over organize!
Because we also make frequent trips to the library, we always keep the library books separated in to a basket on the top of Beckett’s bookshelf. By returning books to the library book basket each time we clean up his room, we never have to search the shelves looking for the library books on the due date.
TIP #8: MAKE IT EASY FOR KIDS TO KNOW WHAT BELONGS WHERE
When we designed Beckett’s bedroom, we added enough shelf space to accommodate both books and toys. He loves sorting and putting things back in place, so the DIY numbered bins have been perfect for us. When we first organized his room, I let Beckett decide what toys would go in each bin, so now he knows, for example, that his Sesame Street playhouse and all the parts and pieces go in bin number 3, while all of his small animals go into the number 4 bin. Because he made the decision about what to put in each bin at the outset, he feels more ownership over putting his toys back in the correct bins.
TIP #9: HELP KIDS FOCUS ON THE TASK AT HAND
When we are trying to clean up his room in a hurry, Beckett sometimes gets a bit overwhelmed running back and forth from bin to bin putting away one toy at a time. When this happens, I make things easier on him {and me} by putting all of the numbered bins back on the shelf and give him just one at a time. I’ll hand him the number 4 bin, and tell him to fill it with all the animals. Once all of the animals are away, then I’ll hand him a different bin to fill. This helps him focus, and makes the clean up process much faster.
Even if all the toys are out of their bins, and books are spread all over the table and floor, between the two of us, Beckett and I can always get his room picked up in about five minutes.
TIP #10: TOYS STAY IN THE ROOM THEY CAME FROM
This last tip is definitely the most important one for making clean up quick and easy. In our house, we have a rule that toys have to stay in the room that they came from. This means that if the boys are playing in their bedrooms and decide they want to play in the living room instead, they have to leave their toys upstairs and pick different things to play with from the living room toy baskets. By keeping small baskets and bins of toys in each room of the house, there is always something new to entertain the kids, and they actually wind up playing with more of their toys than they might otherwise. I also rotate toys on occasion, which helps keep the kids’ interested!
This rule requires a lot of reminding, and, of course, sometimes results in whining, BUT it also makes life so much easier! There is no way that I could clean up all the toys in each room in just five minutes if half of the toys had to be carried up and down the stairs to reach the right rooms. As an added bonus, because toys always stay in the room that they came from, we lose far fewer!
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