Sandra Phillips our home and family efficiency specialist gives us tips on how to teach your children to keep a clean bedroom. She is armed with all sorts of great tips for helping you get your kids to clean up their rooms.
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The first thing we need to do when teaching our children to keep a clean room is to Simplify Our Surroundings. This is called the SOS of cleaning.
As you are getting ready for the new school year, work with your child to get rid of any extra or unused clothes. Boys used to have one choice in pants for school. Now we have thousands of clothing choices-and we buy them, because we can! To eliminate some of the clutter, eliminate any old, faded, torn, unused or too-small things.
Your next tip is optimizing existing vertical storage space.
Hang dividers to organize outfits-by-the-day.
Double rod closets and use chunky plastic hangers (easier to handle than wire) in colors!
Put hooks on the backs of doors and on walls at convenient levels for PJ’s, purses ect.
Use rotating vertical racks: put them in dead corners for shoes & purses, etc.
The next tip is to maximize horizontal spaces for storage.
Create new horizontal places to put clothes.
Shelving: construct an 8″ deep shelf along one wall or buy bookshelf units, but keep it open!
Boost your Bed! Get bed extenders for single beds to create storage space underneath
Store all your out-of-season clothes, purses and shoes in clear containers.
Make staying organized easy.
Take all lids off of clothes hampers. Two movements means children are not as likely to do it.
Get taller hampers or 3-slot type so they can pre-divide their laundry.
Assign an address! Kids need to know where each sock, shoe and piece of clothing goes!
Teach your children how to clean.
Don’t do it for them, but don’t give up! And pour on the praise. Kids will learn instead of their surroundings controlling them-they can control their surroundings.
Sandra’s latest book, “A Clean Break,” is available at http://www.Live-right.com
This book has a whole chapter devoted to getting kids to clean their rooms.
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