Training ‘em early: get your kids to fix their clutters
So you don’t have a house help. Your days evolve around the house cleaning and organizing, experimenting in the kitchen, managing the family income and all that stuff. With so much tasks to accomplish in a single day, you wouldn’t want to fix clutters over and over again, would you?
Hence, don’t sweat the small stuff. Leave it to the cute culprits to clean up their own mess.
Different strokes for different ages.
Six-year-olds and below would most likely love it when you make it fun. When my daughter was younger, we used to play “ball” in fixing her stuffed toys cluttered all over the bed and on the floor. We’d shoot her toys on the basket (that used to be a hamper) until everything is clear.
I observed that it was never motivating to scold her repeatedly for her mess so I tried this approach. And it worked!
Seven-year-olds are normally smart enough to understand consequences so try a cause-and-consequence deal. I tell my daughter what I’ll do for letting her toys, books and accessories litter around the house. And I always keep my word. When I say I’ll hide the things she left lying on the floor so she can’t be able to use them anymore, I really mean it. Now she’s a clean-as-you-go freak.
No storage? Improvise.
An extra hamper/laundry basket. Perfect for stuffed toys or even plastics.
Medium-sized boxes (usually from cookware items or school supplies). Wrap the boxes up with art paper and put on some labels. Categorizing stuff would make them easy to find and neatly organized. I actually decorated the boxes with some flower and butterfly cut-outs so my daughter loves to use them for storage.
Chocolate boxes . Nice for accessories. My daughter transformed hers into a jewelry box.
Old suitcases. They can hold more toys or better yet old school projects that you don’t want to discard just yet. Since most suitcases are heavy for the little ones, keep the least-used stuff in them.
Starting them early would boost their chances of growing up organized and responsible. Bonus is that it’ll take one daily chore off us, moms.
Wouldn’t we all like that?
Posted in 
Tags: 
