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Teaching a child to keep their room clean can be a challenge, but this is working great, so I had to share it with you! I love to have a clean house and I love to know where everything is, so I want my kid’s rooms to be organized, too. Otherwise, they are complaining of being “bored,” but it’s really because they are overwhelmed. An organized room solves that.
Do you ever feel like your kid’s bedroom is always a mess? I admit that my biggest “time-drainer” is picking up our kid’s clothes. As my Mom has put it, they just “walk out of them”. Its so true!
Our kids have this terrible habit of taking their clothes off & just leaving them wherever they were standing. I had to come up with something to teach our kids to pick up their clothes and here is what is working for us. (Leave a comment of what works for you!)
Why are their clothes always on the floor, you ask?
They dress up like superheros… a lot!
They dress up in their swimsuits & pretend to go surfing (or they just wear their swimsuits because they like to wear them!)…
They dress up in their Dad’s old football jerseys…
They dress up in each others clothes & play “family”…
They dress up in their pajamas and play “camping out”…
Yes, our kids are constantly changing & changing again. (Please tell me I’m not the only mom dealing with this!)
I had to make a new rule because they were “forgetting” where they left their clothes and getting out new ones. I was washing up to four outfits a day sometimes (per child!) To help with keeping kids bedroom clean, we have implemented a new rule & consequence because I DID NOT want to nag them about it constantly…
Here is the rule:
For each article of clothing that I have to pick up off of the ground, they go to bed five minutes earlier.
Trust me, this is enough incentive for the kids to pick up their clothing. They really don’t like going to bed before 7:00 (their bedtime). (see my post on teaching your kids to sleep in later here)
Here is how I taught them to clean their rooms:
Sunday- told them about the new rule and explained it IN DETAIL! “Every article of clothing that you leave on the floor gets you five minutes of earlier bedtime. A sock? 5 minutes. Two socks? Ten minutes.” I went through a lot of examples and they gave me some, too.
I told them that if they were just changing into a costume/dress-up outfit, they could just put their clothes on their bed or dresser for later. They needed to do this because when they leave them in a ball on the floor, they end up getting out a new one ten minutes later. I told them that they would get a day to practice it before it started. So they had all day Sunday to work on this before the consequence would start on Monday.
Monday- they both got ten minutes for leaving clothes out & I stuck to it, even though they both kept asking for “Just one more chance.”
TIP:
(Even if you don’t have a set bedtime, you can just say “Its time for bed. You were going to get to stay up for ten more minutes, but you have to go to sleep ten minutes early tonight for leaving your pajamas (or whatever) on the floor today.” Our kids know that 7:00 is bedtime (well, the 7 hour, but the minutes vary), so when they saw the clock still saying 6, they were upset. (even if it said 6:59, that is early to them!) Reminder: our kids get up at 7:00, so an early bedtime is important. See my post here on: My kids get up too early- How to keep your kids in bed later).
Tuesday- no clothes on the floor
Wednesday- Pajamas WERE on the floor when I walked by the room to see how they were doing getting ready for school and by the time that they were dressed & ready for school… guess what? Pajamas were put away. Woo-hoo!!
This consequence will not last forever– probably about one month, but it is in place right now as a teaching-rule. (As with many of our rules & consequences. We make them to teach our children and after they have made it a habit, we can get rid of the consequence & just remind them, when needed.)
Update: This is an easy system, too.
If you want to start chores with your kids, but not have to deal with a chore chart, try these. We have them & they are easy and they are “normal” chores, like sweep the floors, dust, clean up the living room, etc… It makes it easy to say “Ok everyone – go grab 2 chore sticks and then you are done and you can go play.”
You can find them on Amazon. Here’s the affiliate link: https://amzn.to/2qcNEei
Or I encourage you to join our declutter course.
I bet you will find this post helpful, as well:
And the reason that our kids go to bed at 7:00:
I can not beleave it work but I am going to try it. My daugthers also claim that there children never clean there room and it is taking them allday everday cleaning the childs room.
haha! good luck!
You are not the only one! My kids play dress up all the time, but mostly in the winter. We have a ton of heavy costumes they can’t wear in the summer. Great rule idea. I am going to implement it soon!
Good luck! 🙂
I can’t wait to try this rule! I think I’ll implement it with everything they leave around the house. Peanut butter smeared on the counter after making her lunch, school clothes left in the floor after changing for practice, and even when they don’t flush the toilet! If they can’t clean up after themselves, they’ll go to bed early so they won’t have opportunity to leave stuff out. Great idea!
Good luck! It works here. 🙂
My son would never bring down his laundry, even though I told him “I’m doing laundry, bring me your clothes if you want them washed”, yet on a school morning he’d be in a panic because he couldn’t find any clean clothes. I numbered the buttons on my washer in the order he needed to push them and bought tide pods. Now he does his own laundry and can’t get mad at me when he runs out of clothes. It’s been working great!
Love that, Kelly!
Now I just have to get him to stop putting those clothes in the dirty hamper! They’ll be worn out from washing more than playing soon. Lol I suppose the same rule would work…
I just stumbled onto your site while looking for something else. I raised eight children. The mess almost drove me out of my mind! Now they are mostly grown, and I have three grandchildren, with more planned, according to the parents. I shared the link to this page on my facebook page. I hope it gets you lots more visitors. Thanks for your work on this site!
🙂 Thanks, Donna!
Great idea! What we did with our 2 year old when she started refusing to pick up her toys was, “If I pick it up – I put it up.” I would put the toy up on a shelf or counter where she could see it, but not reach it to play with. Enough times of, “I want my ___ toy!” – Sorry honey, mommy put it up, because you left it in the middle of the kitchen floor. Please remember to put away your toys when done with them and they won’t get lost. She’d “earn” her toy back by helping me with extra activities (holding the dust pan, cooking, basically by calming down and being mommy’s helper again. Then I would thank her for her help and tell her she had earned her toy back by working so hard. Now, she does a pretty good job of putting away. I usually only have to ask once if she forgets and when I turn around again…the magnets are no longer scattered across the floor! (She’s 3 now.)
I completely agree, you can’t do this stuff for them, or you’ll be doing it for them FOREVER!
Yep!! I love your idea, too.
I just started this last week with 2 teenagers! It works! They DO NOT want to go to bed early! I love it! Thank you
😉 good!
Why Temporary? Make it permanant until they are older then change to the goody bag. Every item of clothing left down gets put in the goody bag and donated. Works wonders with teens. Rules and good habits are for life, not just for awjile.
Nagging can have the opposite effect on kids. It’s important to adopt a strategy that will empower them toclean without you having to remind them! The idea is to find a system that goes along with their personalities.
My sons never clean his bedroom.I always help them clean their room.But today I find best website like your site let they read it.So now they always their room everyday thanks you for sharing your experience.
This sounds like a good idea. Honestly my girls would be going to bed before dinner at the pace they are going. Our rule is if it’s not in the hamper it doesn’t get washed. They both have outfits that they love and wear as soon as they are clean. Having to wait for those because they weren’t in the hamper had helped them keep up with it.
I had problems with “go to bed”…My boys HAVE to be showered,teeth brushed, pj’s on and in bed reading by 8pm. Every minute thereafter is added to their EBT the following night.
Iha e older girls, so my rule is… If it isn’t in the hamper it doesn’t get washed (same goes for my husband)!! They all put their clothes in the hamper now?
When I was a kid, probably in late elementary and through high school, my brothers and I would come into the house, walk right by the coat closet and hang our jackets/coats on the back of the kitchen chairs. My dad would pick them up and toss them out the back door onto the lawn, rain or shine, sleet or snow, it didn’t matter. We would be looking all over for our jackets and it would dawn on us to look out the back door and sure enough there it was! It didn’t take us very long to stop hanging out coats on the kitchen chairs! My father was always one of few words! 🙂
LOL!!!