Trying to contain the endless torrent of excitement and energy of a small child is an almost impossible task. Even without considering its difficulty, their enthusiasm isn’t something we want to stifle anyway. Their capacity for enjoyment and their unadulterated sense of wonder reminds us that childhood is a priceless experience. One of the minor downsides that often comes with childlike excitement is a messy kid's room. Not to worry though, because we’ve come up with some handy ideas you can use to help your child’s room stay clean and organized.
Storage Bins With Labels
The first thing you can do to organize your kid’s room is to get a series of low-to-the-ground, easily accessible plastic bins in which they can sort their toys and drawing implements. You can use lids on the bins if you want to, but we recommend going lidless, as the lids are likely to get damaged and/or left on the ground anyway.
In addition to low and sturdy storage bins, we also suggest a labelling and colour coding system to sort the various types of toys, art supplies, and other knick-knacks in your kid’s room. This way they’ll know exactly where everything goes, and it will all be within their reach.
Arrange Things at Your Child’s Level
Whatever stage of growth your child is at, it’s useful to arrange things in their bedroom so that they can use everything they have. This can be as easy as hanging a clothing bar at their height, having small cupboards with ground-level doors, and pushing those storage bins under your child’s bed for easy access.
Sort Things from Bottom to Top
Having high surfaces in your kid’s room is nearly unavoidable, it’s just the nature of furniture. Since providing them with a step-stool isn’t a good idea until they’re old enough to understand the potential risks of falling from a height, it’s a good idea to arrange their favourite items at the bottom of their shelves. Do they have a favourite book they read almost every night? Put it at the bottom. Do they have a collection of pencil crayons and colouring books they love? Those go at the bottom too. Do they have a series of toys that create annoyingly incessant sounds and seem to have a perpetual “On” button? Those go at the top.
Sort, Sift, and Store
As kids grow, we need to get them new clothes, shoes, and any other wearable item you can think of. This often leads to their rooms and closets overflowing with unused or excess item that just take up space. Our preferred way of combating this problem is by conducting a twice a year sorting routine where you go through and remove anything that is out of season, or too small for your child to wear. The small clothes can be given to a younger sibling or relative, or you can donate them to your local charity. Any out of season clothing can be stored in a larger closet, or sent to a storage unit if you’re really pressed for space.
Create a Pickup Routine for the Kids
Teaching your kids some mild responsibility is a great way to instill a sense of work ethic early on. When you make the chore easy, it’s a simple matter to have a Morning Pick-up, and an Evening Pick-up to encourage your child to clean up their things. This is where having an uncovered series of colour-coded storage bins with corresponding labels comes in handy. Every time you ask your kids to do a Pick-up, they’ll know that chores can be fast, easy, and fun too.
If you have more than one child at home, they can make a game out of who can put their toys away faster. Or if they do the Pick-up without a fuss, they’ll get a few more minutes of a story or T.V time. There are a lot of things that you can do to incentivize your child to complete this task. Remember that positive incentivization often works better than its negative counterpart.
Summing Up
Keeping your kid’s room clean and organized starts with you, the parent, but it will only remain that way if you involve your young ones as well. Once you make the change, you’ll see how much of a difference a little clean-up time really makes. And with these handy ideas making things easier on everybody, keeping the kids’ rooms clean and tidy has never been easier.