If you take pride in your home, and you are looking for ways to spruce up your homestead, you may feel that it’s pointless making any big changes because of one very simple reason: the children! After all, our children are whirling dervishes of mess! And we only have to look at our kids’ bedrooms to see just how things can get out of hand in so little time. Decluttering a child’s room is one of those almighty tasks that isn’t just about tidying up, but it’s about the psychological bartering with your child to get them to throw anything out. So what can you do to ensure that your kids’ room gets decluttered, but it’s also done with minimal effort and stress?
Tackle The Tasks They Care Less About First
While they may be clinging onto a certain toy for dear life, they may not really care about their clothes. Did you really care about how you looked when you were really young? Keeping your children’s clothes organized is one of the less stressful tasks. And if you have no idea how to do this, the article Top Tips for Keeping Your Kids’ Clothes Organized can start you off. When you look at the kids’ room and consider that there will be dramas over certain toys, it’s far better to minimize your stress at the outset and get the task started by tackling these less important duties.
Work With Your Kids, Not Against Them
When you have toddlers, they want to participate in some way, and to make it an easier task for you, tasking them with a small duty gives them some ownership over the project. At the very least, even if they don’t keep the room tidy, they will know where everything goes. Working with your children can prove difficult, especially when it comes to those toys they love so much, but this means you have got to learn some form of compromise. This requires consistency, and not giving in at the first hurdle. But you can make it easier by reiterating why stuff “has a home.” As children are able to personify things a lot better than we do, talking about “giving an item a home” will start to put the point across. It’s about reframing the language rather than making it sound negative. Rather than saying “put that away,” saying “can we put it where it lives?” will tweak the expression somewhat.
Making It Fun
It is easier said than done, especially if you have older children, but when you want to get the room clean and tidy, involving them is one thing, and completely taking over the operation is another! You want to work with them, and this means that you turn it into a game. Giving them a task like putting toys in the toy box within a time limit can encourage them to work faster and make it fun. The trick is to avoid making it boring.
Perhaps in the run-up to Christmas, you are looking to do some decluttering so there is room for more toys, but as a child’s bedroom can be one of the messiest of spaces, it’s about having the right tactics in place.
