Do you keep the door shut to your kids' rooms just to preserve your sanity? Last time you threw something in there, did something throw it back? Consider these tips for kids' rooms of all ages.
Toys usually cause the most clutter stress for parents. Are you keeping them in a centralized area of the house like a playroom, or are they stored in your children's rooms? Think about changing your approach if you have options with your space and want to keep your kids' rooms cleaner. If some toys end up in their bedrooms and need to be returned to a playroom area, keep a basket by the door to quickly clear the floor and empty the basket weekly.
Don't store toys all together in one large toy box. The toys are not very visible so it encourages dumping-out and rooting around. Focus on organizing toys into smaller bins on shelves, and label each bin with both pictures and words. Here are some more Good Housekeeping tips on Cleaning and Organizing Kids' Toys.
Style = Clutter?
The older your kids get, the more they may want to express their own style in their rooms, but this self-expression can sometimes feel like clutter when they are taping posters all over their walls and displaying their various "collections." Give them plenty of space using cork tiles for bulletin boards, shoe pockets on backs of doors for small collectibles, and lots of wall shelves for books and knickknacks. You can even paint a whole wall with magnetic paint, chalkboard paint, or whiteboard paint for more creative space. Here is an idea-packed Good Housekeeping slideshow with Easy Organizing and Decorating Tips for Kids' Rooms.
Clothing and Closets
Back-to-school is the perfect time to go through your children's clothing, given the transition of both schedules and seasons. Have a trying-on session with your kids and assess what still fits (my kids always had shockingly short pants!). Organizing kids' clothing means that you'll have the smartest shopping list for hitting the back-to-school sales.
Teach your kids the "pancake flipper method" for handling clothing in stacks. Stick your hand out palms-up and use it like a spatula to insert into a pile of folded t-shirts just above the one you want, lift the shirts, remove the chosen shirt with your other hand, and put the rest of the stack down.
Open hampers work better than ones with lids, which require several steps and two hands to function. Take the lid off and let them just toss clothes in.
Create a "Donation Station" in your home as a collection spot for items as you decide they are ready to donate to Goodwill®. Even a simple paper shopping bag on the floor of the closet will do the trick. Teach your kids that donating is as important as recycling! Goodwill's Donate site has a special page for kids, and you can see a clip there of my friend Joel Greene, the host of the PBS show Curiosity Quest, who filmed a whole show about donating and what happens to your clothes when you pass them along to help others.
Most parenting experts advise against having computers, televisions, and video game equipment in children's own rooms, saying it's better to have these media in a common area of the house. As a parent of two teenage boys, I heartily agree, and this advice rings true both for parenting reasons and for helping with clutter prevention. Organizing your DVDs, video games, and other electronics into one or two centralized areas of your home, like a playroom and family room, makes everything easier to find and manage.
Also, kids will likely have fewer snacks and drinks in their rooms without digital entertainment. With or without electronics, have a rule for snacks that you must use a tray, so that it's easier to clean up and it keeps crumbs corralled. And make sure trash cans are strategically placed!
Organizing kids' bedrooms can be stressful, given they often want to participate and have strong opinions. See my previous post, Kids and Clutter: What to Teach Them About Organizing, for some helpful tips. What are your challenges with your children's rooms? Share in the comments!