When we teach our kids to clean up after themselves, we’re helping to instill some important values in them, such as how to contribute to the family unit, how to keep a clean home ready for when they move out (eventually!) and understanding the importance of having responsibilities.
Here are a few tips on getting your kids to clean up after themselves:
Make cleaning a part of their daily routine in some way or another:
You don’t want to nag at your kids about cleaning, otherwise they’ll hate the tasks and grow to resent you, too, so the best way is to have a little 5 minute clean up before they take their evening bath or go to bed. Have this happen daily and it will soon become routine.
Make sure your kids know where things belong:
After your kids have played with their toys or games, it’s important that they know where it came from, so that they can put it back when asked to. Even toddlers can get to grips with this, especially if you use brightly coloured boxes for storage.
Don’t leave them to do it completely alone:
The minute you ask the kids to tidy up while you relax on the couch with a glass of wine, is the minute they’ll begin to resent the task you’ve set them! Help them without taking over, and give guidance so that they aren’t forced to repeat the task if they don’t get it right the first time.
Clean up as they go along:
Putting one set of toys away before they start playing with the next, is one simple way of avoiding having a floor covered in toys, and let’s face it, the more toys they are forced to tidy away in one go, the less likely they are to relish the task!
Get them to understand how important cleaning up is:
If you can get your kids to understand that when they tidy away after themselves, their toys are less likely to get lost or broken, you’ll have more time for doing things together if they tidy up often, and that it is part of the responsibility of growing up, then everything should become less of a battle.
Be an example for your kids:
When you start cleaning up after yourself and making tidying part of your regular, daily routine, your kids will soon follow your habit, or at the very least, become less inclined to moan and whinge about it!
Nobody wants their kids to feel like slaves, so be careful not to load too many cleaning or tidying tasks onto their little shoulders; but learning to at least put things away where they belong once they’ve finished with them, is a great start for younger kids. Older kids, well, those you can really put to work!