Teaching Your Kids to Be Organized
Every parent dreams of a child that neatly puts away its toys after playing
with them and maybe helps out with the dishes after dinner. However,
that’s rarely the case, especially with very young children. Being organized
is a learned behavior, which is why you need to set those expectations
from an early age.
In this article, we will take a look at how you can help your children to be
more organized and help you out without throwing a tantrum.
Set clear expectations
Young kids don’t understand the concept of cleaning and tidiness. For
them, it is not clear why exactly their mum or dad is getting angry at some
toys on the ground or a crayon drawing on the wall. Start off by explaining
calmly why being clean and tidy is important both for children and adults.
Let them know what is expected; it can be tidying their bed every morning,
making sure the toys are put away, not making a mess when eating or
playing. To make things easier, you can make a planner for them. Draw a
fun calendar together and write down which chores they need to do daily
and which ones should be done less frequently. For the smaller kids, we
recommend doing the calendar together, make it a fun memory, let them
draw pictures of the chores, make them feel included in the process. This
will make them a lot more enthusiastic about the whole ordeal.
Don't get angry
Staying calm is very important. As we previously mentioned, young kids
don’t understand the necessity of being organized. No matter how
frustrating it is or how much time it takes them to make it a habit, don’t get
angry and don’t yell. Learning to be organized and cleaning regularly
needs to be a positive experience for your children, so they don’t look at it
as something they dread doing. If they associate cleaning and organizing
with negative emotions from an early age, they might have problems with
it in the future, as well.
A lot of experiences and emotions transfer to our adult lives and we may
be left wondering what’s wrong with us for years until we finally realise the
core of the problem. Just think about it, if your kids have the image of their
angry mum every time they have to clean, they are not gonna look forward
to it, they will make excuses and postpone forever.
Divide the chores into small tasks
This is a very useful tactic for all the things we don’t really want to do. Split
the big chore into smaller digestible bits so that it doesn’t look that scary in
the beginning. For a small child having to clean an entire room can be
daunting. So you need to make the whole process easier for them and not
as scary.
For example, instead of telling your kid “Tidy up your room”, try with - “Tidy
your bed”, “Put your toys away”, “Put the dirty clothes in the basket”; etc.
It’s good to have a sort of a guide for those tasks that your kid can turn to
if needed. Similar to the schedule, you can make those guides with your
kid and just position them in an accessible place, such as the back of the
door, the wardrobe or the mirror.
Once your kid is told to do something, they can easily turn to the guides
and complete the chore accordingly.
Set an example
No child will take on these habits and understand the importance of being
organized if they don’t have an example. Meaning, you can’t really expect
them to tidy their bed or clean up the dishes if they don’t see you doing it
regularly. Of course, there are days and moments where we don’t feel like
cleaning or we don’t have the time to do it but you need to be clear that
those are just exceptions and should not be the norm.
Many times when kids don’t want to do something it’s because they feel
upset or they don’t understand why. Sit down and talk with them, offer to
help out if needed, whatever gets them to express their frustration and
reasons why they don’t want to deal with the task at hand.
Make sure all the other family members are also setting a good example.
It’s a team effort, not a one-man job!
Make it a fun activity
A great way for your kid to associate cleaning and organizing with fun
times is to combine it with something they like. For example, their favourite
music or an audiobook. It’s a tactic that works great with adults, as well. If
there is a podcast or a book you really want to listen to, cleaning is the
perfect time to do so. You will be physically occupied and it will be easier
to concentrate instead of getting distracted and missing the entire point.
It’s the same with kids. Ask what their favorite songs are and make a
cleaning playlist together. This way, when they have to clean their room,
they will immediately associate it with a fun time when they can listen to
their favourite tunes.
Another thing you can do is try some cleaning games like a treasure hunt
that requires kids to tidy a certain section in order to find clues about the
treasure; a game of musical chairs, without the chair; and even a wheel of
chores where they get to spin the wheel in order to get assigned a task.
Conclusion
At the end of the day, you’re the one who knows your kids best. Just
communicate with them, have patience and remember that you were also
once a kid who hated tidying their bed.
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