Do your kids make so much mess that you don’t know how to stay on top of it? As much as you love your kids, you probably don’t love the mess that they leave everywhere.
Good news is… you can get rid of the clutter and still manage to have a home with kids in it!
We have a few ideas that can help you to keep a cleaner, neater house.
1. Have regular decluttering times.
When you clean in your home, particularly in the kids’ rooms, don’t just focus on tidying up. But also try to declutter. This means getting rid of items that are making them look untidy. Either throwing them in the trash, giving them away to someone, or storing them somewhere else.
Consider which things your kids might not use, which things they no longer want or have outgrown, and which things are in such a bad condition that it might not be good to keep them around.
Of course, you want to talk to your kids about each of these decisions. Do not just get rid of their things without them knowing about it. For example, if they have too many toys, you can set a limit and each time you declutter have them get rid of five toys.
Decluttering is actually healthy for your kids, boosting their mental health, lowering stress levels, and helping them to be more organized.
2. Give for a cause.
Your kids may have trouble parting with some of their toys and other belongings. But if things are getting out of control in their rooms, you will need to figure out how to motivate them to stop hoarding so much.
What may help is to tell them that you want to give some of their toys to needy children. You can give away some of the toys to charities or to neighborhood kids that might not be as fortunate as them.
This can spur your children to want to give up some of their belongings. And it can help with the decluttering.
3. Live a more minimalist lifestyle.
A lot of people are embracing minimalism in their lives. This means living with less, buying fewer things, holding on to fewer things, and simply doing without when possible.
While you may not want to embrace all of this or go as far as some other people do, you can help your kids be less selfish and greedy. Teach them that they don’t need as much as they think they do.
You can do this in small ways, like limiting how much your children buy at once. Give them a limit as to how much they’re allowed to purchase in a particular time frame as well.
You can set limits for your kids on how many things they’re allowed to have in their room. Create a sensible limit for the number of dolls, stuffed animals, action figures, and other toys that take up space.
Be consistent with this. Set limits for apps, digital downloads, and other items that might not take up physical space but that can cause your kids to be selfish if they have too many of these things.
By having fewer things, you’ll be dealing with the clutter problem and reducing selfishness in your children.
4. Put everything in its place.
You may need to tackle clutter from a different angle in your home. Your kids might not be keeping their rooms tidy simply because they don’t have a place for everything to go.
If you take the time to show your children where each item can be put so that the room looks tidy. And you help them clean, then they are more likely to maintain that tidiness themselves.
You may need help with this from time to time, hiring cleaning services when you can’t do the work on your own or your schedule is too busy.
If you don’t have a storage space set up for every item in the kids room, then you may need to make some new storage areas. Add shelves, bookcases, storage bins, cupboards and whatever else your kids need to tame the clutter and keep their rooms looking tidy.
The lack of cleanliness in their rooms isn’t necessarily because they are inherently messy. It could be because they don’t have any good options for storing their items away.
5. Leave some space.
Another problem that leads to over cluttering in the house is that there simply isn’t any extra space. You and your family are going to buy more things, so it makes sense to leave a little extra room.
Don’t try to fill up every drawer, max out the space on each shelf, and populate the cupboards until they’re bursting. Leave some room here and there. This will make it easier to store things away neatly and easily, and it leaves room for future purchases.
Try to plan ahead a little bit. Then if you see the storage space running out in your kids’ rooms, you can start preparing additional storage before more purchases take up that leftover space.
6. Keep it contained.
Part of the reason you find clutter everywhere you go in the house is because you are allowing your kids to leave things anywhere they like.
Tell them what is allowed to leave their room and what isn’t. Make sure they clean up after themselves and know what kind of things are allowed to be left outside their rooms.
When you set limits like these, you’ll save yourself a lot of work and frustration. You won’t be as likely to see a mess in each room. And your kids will do a better job of containing what they have.
7. Make tidying up easy.
Your kids will get tired from time to time and not feel like cleaning up after themselves. They may feel like tidying takes a lot of work, and you want to put things in place to make it easy for them to clean up their things.
You can do this by putting bins in their room where they can store large quantities of items very quickly. Instead of neatly organizing each thing, they can just throw everything into the bin.
This might not be a great solution for every item of theirs. But it can be a good tool to make cleaning go faster and make it more enjoyable.
Ready to tame your kids’ clutter?
Maintaining cleanliness at home is indeed very challenging when you have kids! But with these ideas, we’re confident that you’ll be able to stay on top of your kids’ clutter.
Following these tips will also make it easier for your kids to clean their mess. And, most importantly, it will be a bit easier on your part to train your kids to be organized and neat at home!
Need more tips for keeping a clean home with kids? Check these out!
- How to Declutter Your Kids’ Room
- 20 Simple Ideas to Organize Kids Room
- How to Set Up a Shared Bedroom for the Kids that They Will Love!
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