Cleaning time can be painful for any parent. Battle cries of “Clean your room!” echo through the walls and seem to make no difference. But all hope is not lost. Here are three easy tips to help make cleaning fun and easy.
- Take the child’s view point: By getting down to their level you will realize what the world looks like from their point of view. Closet doors might be too complicated or heavy to open, hangers too high to reach, and containers may be in hard to reach places or are not easy to open. Make things easier for them by removing closet doors and replacing them with fashionable shower curtains, buy child size coat hangers, and have open floor-level containers for clothes and toys.
- Keep child a part of the process and make it fun: Yelling is not going to teach them organization skills or maintenance methods. In fact, it’s going to make them hate cleaning even more. Teaching and learning first hand, however, does. So don’t race around the room by yourself because you feel it will be faster and less complicated. You will only be doing yourself a disservice in the long run. Keep your child involved. Have them help. Play some music while you do it. Be their organizational consultant. And when they are done, give them a great big “High five!” afterwards followed with some great compliments. In no time, they will be more than happy to clean their room even if you have to encourage them a little.
- De-clutter their room: Children out grow their toys and clothes almost every year and almost every year we replace them with new and better ones. But as the years go on, we soon begin to accumulate a lot of out-grown and unnecessary junk. If you have plans to have more kids, then have your child help you box and store away toys and clothes for their next “brother” or “sister”. If there are no plans for more children, get your child to donate salvageable items they don’t want anymore and dispose of the rest.
If you are moving or planning a big clean-up and need help with removing junk, be sure to book with JuNK iT! online today.