We’ve all had those times when we wished our children could be tidier and more organised, but when the floor is covered in lego, their room is strewn with clothes and the house looks more like there’s been a tornado in a toy shop than a family home, it can seem like a distant dream.
Don’t despair though because there is a way to restore order and calm to your home by helping your children take control of their possessions and teaching them vital skills that will serve them well both now and when they are ready to fly the nest.
Declutter, declutter, declutter
It gets said a lot, but it bears repeating. The less stuff there is to tidy and take care of the more organised children will be. Too many toys and clothes can be overwhelming for children in the same way that too much stuff can cause anxiety in adults. Help your children pare back their possessions so they can look after what remains. Depending on the age and abilities of your children this might be something you undertake on their behalf, or you might involve them in the process. Either way gather everything into categories and sort through them one pile at a time. Anything that’s broken or outgrown can go (or be boxed up to pass onto a younger sibling), and then the remaining toys or clothes can be reduced down to favourites. It can help to talk about this in terms of what to keep, rather than what to discard. “We have room for five jigsaws, can you pick your favourite five?” is a gentler way to introduce children to the idea of decluttering than asking them to decide what they don’t want (inevitably they would want to keep everything). The number of things that stay will depend on the available space, as well as the age and interests of the child. There is no perfect number, so pick something that you think sounds reasonable and try it out.
This is also a good time to talk about passing things onto charity and helping children understand about being generous – as an added bonus children who have fewer toys are actually more likely to play better and for longer so you might finally get chance to drink a hot cup of tea in peace!
Getting organised with storage
Once you have reduced the number of possessions, how to store them is the next question. Storage needs to be easy for children to access so that they can put things away as quickly as possible, with minimal effort. In general avoid boxes with lids, as taking off the lid is often the difference between something being actually put away or left out. Kallax units are very popular for storing children’s toys, but the large size of the boxes can be unhelpful, especially as children get older and their toys start to contain more small parts. Drawers and smaller baskets or boxes can help keep everything organised and make tidying up much easier.
When it comes to where to site storage remember to think about this from a child’s point of view – they are much nearer the ground than we are! Make sure any shelves you want children to use are at their height and think about ways to increase their independence. Often our go to is to put clothes such as underwear and trousers in the top of a chest of drawers, but for a child having these things in the bottom drawer will mean they can easily see them. If you use boxes inside drawers to group clothing by type even very young children can learn to help with putting the laundry away, starting with pairing socks and learning to fold more complicated items as they get older. Having these easily accessible means they can choose their own clothes when getting dressed and helps prevent the entire drawer being turned out because they can’t find what they are looking for.
Teach them to tidy
Once things are organized the next challenge is to get your children to keep it that way! Much like potty training or using a knife and fork, tidying is not actually instinctive, it is a skill that needs to be modelled, practised and repeated before it becomes a second nature. Young children learn best when they do things alongside an adult, with the steps broken down into small manageable chunks, and this same approach can be used with older children who are learning to tidy too. Instead of saying, “tidy your room” or “put your toys away”, we need to guide our children and model how to achieve the end goal. Break the instructions into smaller parts, “let’s put all the cars away in this box” or “now put all the books on the shelf” and work alongside your child to help them with the task. Make sure you don’t end up doing all the work though – children can be slow, but much like those first wobbly steps that quickly turn into a run, they will get faster at tidying with practice.
Make it fun
Children love to play and anything that makes an activity more fun can help things go more smoothly. It doesn’t have to be anything fancy or exhausting for you (what parent has the time and energy to turn everything into an elaborate game?) but putting on some upbeat music or setting a quick challenge such as “can we get all the blocks back in the box before I count to 20?” can help keep children engaged with the task and make it less stressful all round.
Skills for life
Teaching your children how to stay organised and tidy can be a slow process, but it’s a skill that will help them throughout their lives. Whilst it may require a lot of input in the short term, in the long term it means less work for the adults and a more relaxed home for everyone. Children are never too young to start learning to tidy, but if yours are older don’t feel you’ve missed your chance. Remember the old proverb, the best time to plant a tree is ten years ago – the next best time is now. Help your children to plant the seeds of tidiness now and you will all reap the rewards in years to come.
Read more about the author here
We’ve all had those times when we wished our children could be tidier and more organised, but when the floor is covered in lego, their room is strewn with clothes and the house looks more like there’s been a tornado in a toy shop than a family home, it can seem like a distant dream.
Don’t despair though because there is a way to restore order and calm to your home by helping your children take control of their possessions and teaching them vital skills that will serve them well both now and when they are ready to fly the nest.
Declutter, declutter, declutter
It gets said a lot, but it bears repeating. The less stuff there is to tidy and take care of the more organised children will be. Too many toys and clothes can be overwhelming for children in the same way that too much stuff can cause anxiety in adults. Help your children pare back their possessions so they can look after what remains. Depending on the age and abilities of your children this might be something you undertake on their behalf, or you might involve them in the process. Either way gather everything into categories and sort through them one pile at a time. Anything that’s broken or outgrown can go (or be boxed up to pass onto a younger sibling), and then the remaining toys or clothes can be reduced down to favourites. It can help to talk about this in terms of what to keep, rather than what to discard. “We have room for five jigsaws, can you pick your favourite five?” is a gentler way to introduce children to the idea of decluttering than asking them to decide what they don’t want (inevitably they would want to keep everything). The number of things that stay will depend on the available space, as well as the age and interests of the child. There is no perfect number, so pick something that you think sounds reasonable and try it out.
This is also a good time to talk about passing things onto charity and helping children understand about being generous – as an added bonus children who have fewer toys are actually more likely to play better and for longer so you might finally get chance to drink a hot cup of tea in peace!
Getting organised with storage
Once you have reduced the number of possessions, how to store them is the next question. Storage needs to be easy for children to access so that they can put things away as quickly as possible, with minimal effort. In general avoid boxes with lids, as taking off the lid is often the difference between something being actually put away or left out. Kallax units are very popular for storing children’s toys, but the large size of the boxes can be unhelpful, especially as children get older and their toys start to contain more small parts. Drawers and smaller baskets or boxes can help keep everything organised and make tidying up much easier.
When it comes to where to site storage remember to think about this from a child’s point of view – they are much nearer the ground than we are! Make sure any shelves you want children to use are at their height and think about ways to increase their independence. Often our go to is to put clothes such as underwear and trousers in the top of a chest of drawers, but for a child having these things in the bottom drawer will mean they can easily see them. If you use boxes inside drawers to group clothing by type even very young children can learn to help with putting the laundry away, starting with pairing socks and learning to fold more complicated items as they get older. Having these easily accessible means they can choose their own clothes when getting dressed and helps prevent the entire drawer being turned out because they can’t find what they are looking for.
Teach them to tidy
Once things are organized the next challenge is to get your children to keep it that way! Much like potty training or using a knife and fork, tidying is not actually instinctive, it is a skill that needs to be modelled, practised and repeated before it becomes a second nature. Young children learn best when they do things alongside an adult, with the steps broken down into small manageable chunks, and this same approach can be used with older children who are learning to tidy too. Instead of saying, “tidy your room” or “put your toys away”, we need to guide our children and model how to achieve the end goal. Break the instructions into smaller parts, “let’s put all the cars away in this box” or “now put all the books on the shelf” and work alongside your child to help them with the task. Make sure you don’t end up doing all the work though – children can be slow, but much like those first wobbly steps that quickly turn into a run, they will get faster at tidying with practice.
Make it fun
Children love to play and anything that makes an activity more fun can help things go more smoothly. It doesn’t have to be anything fancy or exhausting for you (what parent has the time and energy to turn everything into an elaborate game?) but putting on some upbeat music or setting a quick challenge such as “can we get all the blocks back in the box before I count to 20?” can help keep children engaged with the task and make it less stressful all round.
Skills for life
Teaching your children how to stay organised and tidy can be a slow process, but it’s a skill that will help them throughout their lives. Whilst it may require a lot of input in the short term, in the long term it means less work for the adults and a more relaxed home for everyone. Children are never too young to start learning to tidy, but if yours are older don’t feel you’ve missed your chance. Remember the old proverb, the best time to plant a tree is ten years ago – the next best time is now. Help your children to plant the seeds of tidiness now and you will all reap the rewards in years to come.
Read more about the author here