5 tips to get your children cleaning up after themselves

After a joyful day with your kids, it’s late at night, the house is quiet as children are asleep, you look around and there are toys everywhere, waiting for the cleaning up. Have you ever been in this situation?

Cleaning up after children is an endless process as they seem to play almost all the time. So, is there a way to make clean up easier on us? Definitely! Get your children to clean after themselves. In fact, teaching children to clean was proofed to be beneficial for the child too. Cleaning up increase children’s sense of responsibility and discipline. It also teaches them real-life skills and helps them to develop their fine and motor skills.

Here’s how to excite your kids for the cleaning up!

First: Be a good example

Children are great observers and they learn from your behavior. Whenever you tidy up, talk with them about what you are doing and why. For example; when you remove an object from the floor you can ask them “do you know why I am removing it?” It is because if we leave it on the floor someone might trip over it.

Second: Make it fun

Cleaning up in most cases comes at the end of the playing time, which upset children. So, imagine if you made it as fun as playing! If you have one child, you can try the following; sing with your child during cleaning up or let the child dress up as their favourite character when cleaning up. If you have more than one child do a cleanup competition to see who is going to finish faster or set a timer and see if they can finish before the timer goes off.

Third: Nurture their imaginations

Explain to your children that every object belongs to somewhere, and therefore their toys belong to the place they take it from. If toys are not returned to where they belong, they become sad.

Fourth: Give them options of cleaning up

Instead of giving your child an order to clean, try to give them options such as asking them if they will return their toys before or after dinner, or asking them which corner they will start cleaning up first.

Fifth: Repeat, repeat, repeat.

Make cleaning up part of your child’s daily routine. Once it becomes a routine the child will start to know what is expected from him and to meet those expectations without having to tell them constantly to do so.

If you have additional tips that parents will benefit from, share it with us in the comments!

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