5 tricks for your kid to keep the room clean!

For every woman who ever gave her mother a hard time about keeping her room clean, the paybacks are hard hitting when it comes time to trying to get your own daughter to clean her room.

Suddenly you hear yourself saying the same exact words that your mother uttered to you, "If your room isn’t cleaned in five minutes, I’m throwing everything you own in the garbage!" Unfortunately the threats never worked on you and they probably won’t work on your daughter. Here are some tricks that might work a little better than empty threats.

1. Start from day one

Okay, maybe not day one. You should probably give your newborn a day or two to adjust to live outside the womb. However, it will be well worth your time to train your daughter (and sons for that matter) to keep their room clean from an early age. Having them put away their toys nightly as toddlers will pay off eventually.

2. Don’t wait till it’s a disaster zone

It shouldn’t be too much of a fight to get your kid to pick up a few articles of clothes or a book, but it will be a fight if her entire dresser contents are on the floor as well as every book from the shelf. If you continuously remind her to pick up when there are just a few things, it will never be a huge issue.

3. Get rid of unused “stuff”

Step 1: Closet. Go through clothes and eliminate anything not worn or that doesn’t fit. Continue on throughout the rest of the room, getting rid of anything that no longer serves a purpose. A trinket that hasn’t been looked at for months, toys/games/books that haven’t been played with, and anything else that is just collecting dust will only make the room more difficult to keep clean.

4. Employ a reward or consequence system

For some families, rewards work better. Likewise, consequences work better for other families. Whichever works better doesn’t really matter as long as it is followed up with. If your daughter kept her room clean all week, maybe an allowance will be in order. If the room hasn’t been kept clean, maybe a weekend with no contact with friends will help remind her next week.

5. Don’t save your kid!

As much as you might want to pick up her room after days of nagging, do not do it. Leave those clothes on the floor. Let her figure out if they are clean or dirty. When she can’t find her favorite shirt or it’s dirty the day she really wants to wear it, she might learn the lesson on her own. When she can’t find her school books, homework, or any other important item, it might finally sink in that life is easier without the clutter. Sometimes letting kids experience natural consequences of their choices makes more of a difference.

Christy Rasmussen

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5 tricks for your kid to keep the room clean!