Getting your kids to be tidier around the home can often feel like you’re fighting a losing battle, but with a little encouragement and a lot more patience, you can at least get them to keep their rooms a bit tidier.
Here are 6 ways that might help your kids to help you keep the home cleaner and tidier:
1. Set a positive example
If you want your kids to be cleaner around the home, the least you can do to encourage that, is to be clean and tidy yourself. Demonstrate what your expectations are and be consistent in how you care for your home and keep it clean and tidy.
2. Teach and show your kids – multiple times if necessary
We can’t always expect smaller children (or sometimes even older ones) to know what we expect of them, and how we want them to achieve that. So, you’ll need to show your kids what you want them to do, and it may be that you have to do this multiple times until they’ve picked it up and can get the jobs done to an acceptable standard.
3. Put things away
Teaching your kids to put things away after they’ve finished playing with them, is one of the easiest and most effective ways to at least keep your home a bit tidier, even if it isn’t necessarily cleaner. Once they’ve mastered tidying away after themselves, you can progress to teaching them how to clean things.
4. Be organized
Having specific containers for toys and games to go into, helps your children not only organize their things, but keeps them tidied away and safe in between play times. Try clear plastic boxes so that your child can see what is supposed to go in each one, or label them with pictures to make it even easier.
5. Fix hooks in appropriate places
Having hooks inside your door and in your kids rooms, helps them to easily hang up their coats and jackets when they come in from outside, instead of leaving them in a pile on the floor. There are some cute and colorful, fun-looking hooks available, which help your kids enjoy using them. Ultimately though, it keeps floor spaces clear and means that their coats and jackets can easily be found the next time they want to go outside.
6. Employ some incentives
We’re not talking about full on bribery here, but most kids (and many adults, too!), relish the prospect of having to do something they would rather not, if there’s a reward at the end of it. What the rewards are, is entirely up to you, and you’ll need to use your own judgement as to how often treats are awarded, and what exactly they’re awarded for.
Even if you use the services of a cleaning company and are happy with the results this gives you every day or week, it’s always a good idea to encourage your kids to be tidier around the home. And let’s face it, the less time the cleaners are spending picking up toys and other items that your kids have left lying around, the more time they can spend on the cleaning jobs you hate!
