3 Surprising Tips for Keeping Your Kids Organized
Keeping our kids organized can be a challenge! We know it’s an important teachable moment for the long term, but it’s also vital for our family sanity. An organized family feels more cohesive and positive. Even the most organized families can struggle with daily maintenance.
- Set up systems that are kid friendly as a start. The first step is to set up organizing systems that work for them. Create a system that works with their individual styles. A simple system is best for their clothes, media and toys. Give them a good baseline to stay organized.
- Do some decluttering with them twice a year to keep pared down. Without a time line, there is more coming in for our kids than going out. Working alongside them in their spaces, your kids will learn that decluttering is an important life skill. Rather than being overwhelmed, they will welcome the time working alongside you too.
Check out these surprising ways to get your kids into organizing each week.
Think gadgets
Kids stay better organized when there is an innovative tool to use. Swiffers, cleaning wipes, and gadgets keep your kids engaged in organizing. Have a dust buster? Have them break it out under their beds to clear out dust and get organized in their rooms.
Get goofy and make it fun
There’s lots of ways preschool teachers make organizing fun. They use the clean up song or set a timer. It’s easy to incorporate these same tools at home. Have a designated time each day for “resetting” your home. Use a timer on your smart phone or create a Pandora playlist for this time. For just 5 minutes each evening, get everything back to it’s spot. Make it goofy and get in the act too! Not a spot for everything? Have your kids use the label maker (another gadget!) to set up a spot.
Change things up and rearrange their rooms
Just when you think your kids’ rooms could not get any more disorganized, it’s time to rearrange their space. Surprisingly by changing up the arrangement of the dresser, bed and books, your kids are more organized than ever. It could be the positivity of a new space. It could be the arrangement better suits their current needs. It could be that there’s new energy in the room. Kids will keep their rooms better organized once it is rearranged and they have a new room.
When it’s more fun to be organized than not, our kids love to be organized!
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I just loved having my room rearranged when I was a kid, and for sure, it made me want to keep it neat that much longer!
It’s is a whole new room then! Thanks for stopping by Janet!
I love the idea of rearranging the room because it brings fresh energy to the project. I love the hampers that are built like basketball hoops because kids love those. When my children were little, I loved having a song I played to clean up. It was a song I liked, which helped put me in the right mood as well.
Keeping kids organized, especially students with ADHD or learning disabilities, can be a challenge! I appreciate your suggestions of creating systems and paring down – these are important teachable moment (and for family sanity – I liked that!) Building life skills and organizational skills are important to students who struggle in these areas naturally.
Love using music too. Our kids already know the “clean up song.” Why not use this to get things organized!
So true about the gadgets! Sam just really started liking to vacuum! The swiffer is a great idea too. One thing I do is keep a basket by the side of my sons bed so the books we read every night can go into the basket and when it gets full I put the books away. The clean up song is great too. I think now that he’s almost 7 I’ll find a good song and make it our new clean up song. 🙂 Thanks for the great tips!
Great tips! When I was a kid, I loved to move around my room and get rid of stuff and organize it after everything was out. I wish my kids had my love of organizing. I did get them to dust more frequently by using the Swiffer Duster. It seemed to help them clear surfaces fast so they didn’t have to spend lots of time cleaning. Thanks for sharing.
Autumn, thanks for sharing the book basket idea. I love the idea of giving books a boundary.
Sabrina, we organizers have always rearranging stuff!
Thanks for sharing ladies.
It’s true! The more that kids practice these skills the better!