No one knows how to make a mess quite like kids do. It truly is impressive just how wild and unruly their rooms and play areas can become and just how quickly they’re declared a disaster area. The struggle to help our little ones keep their room clean is a challenge every parent faces. So how can we make this universal challenge less daunting?

Here are a few ways to help you and your masters of disaster achieve a more orderly and clean life with fewer tears from everyone.

Help Them Clean

When kids are younger they often need help to understand what they need to do or how they should clean up after themselves. In the same way that we find it helpful to watch someone cook a meal or create a craft and then copy it, our little mess creators also need help to understand and learn how to pick up after playtime is over.

Provide Direction

After you’ve shown them how to clean up after themselves and done it with them a few times they may still need some help understanding what’s expected of them. As they put things away, kids can struggle with remembering the best way to organize.

When they struggle to understand or remember, help them out by asking them what they think would make the most sense and help them uncover the best way to put things away. For example asking them, “Do you think your blocks belong with your dirty clothes? Where should your blocks go?” Occasionally when they struggle you can help them by providing a simple and clear direction, “Books go on the book shelf, shoes go in the closet.”

Make Cleaning into a Game

Mary Poppins is definitely onto something with this one! Cleaning isn’t seen as a fun activity by most adults and I’m sure we can all remember how boring (and miserable) it was to clean as kids. By turning the task of cleaning up into a game you can incentivise kids by helping them feel like they’re accomplishing more.

It doesn’t take much to make cleaning feel fun for kids; let them ring a bell when they complete a task, put a timer on for a specific chore and see if they can beat the clock, or perhaps see if they can complete a task faster than mom or dad (who can put their pile of toys away fastest?).

Simplicity

Keep it simple silly! At the end of it all, getting kids to clean up after themselves comes down to keeping it simple. A few ways to keep things simple are to organize their often used items and toys into baskets, creating a checklist for them to reference, and assigning age-appropriate chores.

A Tidy Room Needs a Tidy, Waterproof Kids Mattress

We hope this quick list of tips on helping your kids keep their rooms clean(er) helps you and your family find some much needed calm and sanctuary, especially since we’re all home a lot more often than we’re used to.

It’s often pretty hard to get kids to clean up after themselves, it’s even harder to get them to do it when they’re tired and cranky. Help them achieve a great night's sleep by providing them with a mattress made just for kids. Even though our children’s mattress is kid tested, it’s mom and dad approved because it provides peace of mind by being a kid-friendly, waterproof mattress.