Telling your children to go clean their rooms may seem like an exercise in futility, but let’s think about it from a child’s perspective. Let’s say you are a child, and your room is a disaster. There is “stuff” everywhere and you are feeling incredibly overwhelmed because you have just been told to clean your room, but you have no idea where to start.
And even if you did know where to start…how do you know when the job is done? It’s an impossible task for a child who hasn’t been properly taught what cleaning a room actually means, and then how to do it, and most importantly to the child…when does the child know that the room is finished?
Important Tips To Remember
The most important thing to remember about teaching a child to clean his own room is that the instructional process needs to happen more than once. Be prepared to teach your child to do this several times, and also be prepared to give your child a reminder lesson here and there.
It’s also important to inspect your child’s work for accountability. If you are not regularly inspecting your child’s work, then do not expect the child to continue to meet the standard. It just doesn’t work that way.
Practice makes progress, so the more often you have your child clean his room, the better. The first time will always take the longest, but if you can make time each day to have your child go in and do a quick 5-10 minute tidy up, the process will be so much less overwhelming.
So let’s go through the process of how I teach my own children how to clean their rooms. It’s systematic, efficient, and most importantly for a child, it’s quantifiable.
Remember this is something you are doing with your child. You want to teach your child the correct way and order to clean the room. I suggest first explaining the steps, and then clean right alongside your child with a cheerful attitude to set the tone for the cleaning session.
Step One For Cleaning A Child’s Room- Floor Clutter
First things first, let’s get everything off the floor and where it belongs. I recommend having an empty trash bag, and an empty laundry basket. You will put trash in the trash bag and items that do not belong in the room into the laundry basket to put away when you are done with the room (you do not want you or your child getting distracted mid-process by putting things away in other rooms).
Try to work quickly…a timer works really nicely for this. You could either set your timer for five minutes, or try to guess how quickly you can do the floor and use your timer like a stopwatch. The timer helps to set the tone for quick work.
Don’t worry about sweeping or vacuuming yet, we will get to that later. Once everything is off the floor and in its place, you are ready to move onto the next step.
Step Two For Cleaning A Child’s Room- Surface Clutter
Now it is time to take care of everything on top of dressers, nightstands, bookshelves, chairs, desks, etc. that should not be there. Any horizontal surface (not the bed, we’ll get to that soon) with items on top that do not belong there needs to be cleared.
Again, set the timer to encourage quick work.
Once the horizontal surfaces are clear, grab a barely damp cloth and give everything a good wipe down.
Now let’s move onto step number three, this room is looking SO much better at this point!
Step Three For Cleaning A Child’s Room- Bed/Sheets
Let’s now take care of any clutter that is on your child’s bed that shouldn’t be there. Are there any stuffed animals that we can send to their next home?
After you have gotten rid of clutter, let’s go ahead and change the sheets, and give the blanket and comforter a wash too. Fresh linens are one of life’s small delights. Teach your child to appreciate that!
I like to wash children’s sheets every 1-2 weeks, and blankets and comforters quarterly.
Now let’s take a good look underneath the bed! You may want to have your child crawl under there to retrieve anything lurking. If the space it too tight, use a broom to sweep it all out.
Sidenote: If your child needs additional storage space, an under-the-bed storage container is a great solution.
Let’s move on to step four, you’re almost done!
Step Four For Cleaning A Child’s Room- Floors
Everything should be spic and span now so let’s take a few minutes to clean the floors. Your child should clean the floors weekly. So make sure to spend plenty of time teaching your child the proper way to mop or vacuum.
If your child is younger, you can give him a microfiber mop to make the job easier.
Now that your child has a clean and fresh space, it’s time to discuss maintenance and the schedule.
Some good points to go over include:
- Making the bed each morning
- Clothes in the hamper after changing
- Shoes in the closet
- Trash in the trash can
- Putting things where they belong.
Remind your child that if he put items away in their proper place after using them, he can avoid a messy room. Then the room will take no time at all to keep the room tidy!
