Helping Keep Your Child’s Room Clutter Free

It is almost inevitable, that your child’s room fills up with toys and clothes. Teaching a child to keep their things put away starts with a little help from mom or dad. So where do you start?

First you will need to invest in some shelving, storage boxes and good hangers.
To start, weed out clothes that your child has outgrown. Once you have narrowed down what your child can and does wear, the next thing is to either put clothes away in drawers or hang them up. One of the most genuine excuses children give for not hanging up their clothes is that they can’t reach the rods. To help, you can make sure your child can access their clothes while hanging. Lower the closet rod and install shelves at child-accessible heights. You may also want to remove closet doors, this helps small fingers from getting pinched. Consider investing in child-sized hangers for your child. Adult hangers are far too big for a child’s clothing and makes it difficult for them to hang their belongings up.

Now for the toys. The thinking here is that once you show your child where a particular toy goes then he or she may be persuaded to return the next time they finish playing with it. It’s all about your child knowing where their things belong. Here is where storage containers come in handy. Great ideas for storage can be found by looking at office and kitchen organizers. For instance what about shallow wicker trays similar to the plastic in and out letter trays you find in many offices? Such trays are ideal for everything from homework and artwork to hair accessories and game boy games. In a baby room, trays are ideal for storing folded undershirts and socks.

Older kids can utilize higher closet shelves to "store" some of their belongings. Clear plastic shoebox storage containers hold little pieces and identify the contents.

Do you find that there are extra toys and no where to put them? You may want to box up extra toys when your child isn’t around and either donate them or hide them away to bring out and exchange with current toys, later. Toy donations can be made at most local thrift shops. To hide toys away, place extras in a large lidded plastic container and put it in an out-of-the way place. Later, on some rainy day, bring the toys out and surprise your children. Old toys will have a new flare once brought back.

Next is labeling everything. You don’t need to get fancy with professionally made labels. Simply print some out on your computer and tape them on to your storage containers. Place the labels everywhere - on the inside and outside of drawers, on shelf edges, on the outside of the plastic bins etc.

Last, for your child to maintain a clutter free room, try and reinforce their habit of putting things away in their proper place. Because everything is labeled, they shouldn’t forget where things go. After some practice, you will be surprised how quickly your child gets the hang of it and will enjoy having things where they can find them. And you will love having a clean room to enter.