How to Clean and Oraganize a Kids Room

How to Organize the Kids Room

Kids are kids, they just naturally leave clutter in their wake. And you’ll probably always want to shove things under the bed, in the closet, or shut their bedroom door when you have company.

A certain amount of mess is to be expected but for the room to look like a tornado just hit – that’s another story.

You don’t want to make your children into little neurotic neat freaks, but there are certain tips to organizing kid rooms that will definitely help; at least keep things looking halfway tidy.

Toy Chests are a Short Term Fix

First of all, get rid of the toy chest. Who on earth came up with this invention? It’s the equivalent of having your kid shove everything under his bed or in his closet. Toy chests are short term fixes.

When someone is about to come over or it is time to clean the room, your child can throw everything into the toy chest. The toy chest, however, guarantees that the room will be trashed again very, very shortly.

The grass is always greener on the other side, especially for children. There is always a better toy than the one in his hands at that moment. The better toy, without fail, is always at the very bottom of the toy chest.

This means, of course, that everything has to be dumped out – every single toy in the toy chest – to get to the toy they want. And Voila! The room is an instant mess again.

Install Shelves for Toys

A much better solution is to have shelves, preferably with doors or a curtain to hide what’s on the shelves. The secret to shelving is that everything can be seen right there, right in front of them. Now they can visually select a toy, and at the most you will have three or four toys on the ground.

It’s a good idea to mention that toy shelves should be secured to the walls. Especially if your child is adventuresome and already climbs on things like a monkey.

A standing shelf unit can easily be tipped. Make sure wall shelves are secure enough that they don’t fall, even if your child climbs on them.

To help with fairly young children putting toys back into their place, a nice “Teddy lives there and wants to sleep in his special place on the shelf” story will usually help.

Use Hanging Storage Cubbies as Closet Organizers

One of the greatest kid room closet organizers is the hanging shelf with a cubby for each day of the week where you can put a day’s outfit. I’ve actually seen this nifty tool in practice and it works nice.

The key is to get the child involved on a Sunday evening. Make it a ritual that you both choose and place clothing for each day of the week into the cubbies. It truly makes getting ready in the morning so much faster and easier.

You can also use shelving to keep activity outfits like soccer uniforms (with shoes), karate clothing, etc. If you assign it a place and put it there after every wash, you can skip all of the crazy “MOM where are my shoes?” running around at the last minute before practices and games.

Give old toys to Charity

When your child’s room gets cluttered and he’s reluctant to part with any of his toys or possessions, I usually advise either a clutter talk or a charity talk.

The Clutter Talk

The clutter talk is where you prepare your child not to end up being a packrat. Explain they need room to play, sleep, and walk, and if they keep every toy they ever get, there won’t be any room for anything else.

Lead by example, ask them to give up one toy or other possession for every new toy. You should do the same to keep the house from getting cluttered and to set a good example.

The Charity Talk

The charity talk is simply explaining that there are a lot of little girls and boys who don’t have any toys at all and don’t they have a few toys that can be shared with the less fortunate kids?

You shouldn’t force your child to give his toys away (think Mommy Dearest), but you can certainly reason with them and ask them to consider donating a toy or two.

Be sure to reward them by telling your kids how nice it was and how much the other little children will appreciate what they’ve done.

While you won’t always have a magazine perfect kid room, applying these tips will at least make your child’s room a bit more efficient and neat.

The bed might not always be made, but at least mornings will go a bit more smoothly and you won’t kill yourself by tripping over toys dumped out of a toy chest.