How To Help Kids Organize Their Toys

Teaching children responsibility and organizational skills can be overwhelming! Parents want to love, connect with, and nurture their kids and do chores instead. Learning how to show your kids to clean is repetitive, boring, and annoying. Still, with a proper understanding of their development and natural cause and effect, it can be a fun learning experience for them.

Organizing is a life-long process. It takes years of repetition, routines, and conflict resolution before children can tidy up by themselves. Provide organizational tools to succeed, fun rituals, and loving guidance to encourage calm and safe experiences.

Many parents are overwhelmed with anger, hopelessness, and fatigue when they consider their daily cleaning tasks. Figure out how to decrease stress by eliminating certain products, teaching healthy routines, and allowing natural reactions and events to arise. Toys will break, mold, fall apart, and get lost. It is in your best interest to let this happen naturally. Children should feel natural disappointment when this happens, which teaches them to value organizational furniture and tools for tidiness.

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Can a Parent Help Their Child Get Organized?

Parents can absolutely help their children get organized. There are ways to teach your child to be organized so you aren’t responsible for all the mess. In fact, you should teach children to be respectful of their belongings. Parents do not need to clean their children’s stuff for the rest of their children’s lives, but they will guide and model this behavior for a long time.

Different age ranges will require different types of coaching. Young children will need small, easy-to-accomplish lists of chores. Pick up blocks. Turn off the nightlight. Put pajamas in a drawer. Older children will begin learning more elaborate checklists encompassing various actions and responsibilities. Sort and organize toys in the living room. Clean up all the trash from outside. Put your crafts into the appropriate bins.

Different ways to help children value cleaning.

Importance Of Teaching Kids to Organize

The importance of cleanliness and tidiness is personal and differs from family to family. Organizing shows children to value communication and cleanliness and teaches them to appreciate money and personal space. Conversations about cleaning are likely what they will remember in the future when they begin tidying their stuff independently. It shows them sound and healthy habits that will benefit them in the future.

Teach your child to organize if you aren’t planning to buy many toys and if you want them to learn to value what they own. Letting them play roughly with their toys is also essential because it shows them you aren’t scared of their learning process. Show them what happens to toys when they experience them and decide whether you will purchase another. Showing them you care about their play and money helps them appreciate their items more deeply.

Ways To Teach Kids To Organize

• Patience
• Organizational Tools
• Modeling Healthy Habits
• Fun!

Patience

Patience is probably the first trait you need to gain when considering teaching kids to organize. They will be messy, throw stuff, and mismanage their belongings. Be patient with the process because it will take their whole life to learn to organize in a way that makes them feel good about what they own.

Allow children to explore their toys any way they see fit and show them they can separate ones they genuinely care about from the others. Kids have preferences as to which toys get mishandled and which are unique. Communicating should be part of this process to understand what they want to preserve and what they want to experience.

Parents should model patience because they will remember the way you react when they consider cleaning. If they feel tension from past experiences, it will take longer because they will process how to feel about that memory before they clean.

Toys, games, and hobby materials will get destroyed. Let it happen naturally to allow your family to learn and understand patience together. Children will need to experience disappointment and feel safe with immense feelings before they understand why putting things away eliminates this worry.

Organizational habits are a personal process, and showing that you are patient with them will help them feel good about trying. They will fail to please you, and that hurts tiny humans. Continue to be calm with your expectations as they acquire the skills they need to clean.

Give Them Organizational Tools

Provide the suitable materials they need for success to significantly increase your chance of teaching them to separate and put away things. Encourage them to decide which areas are for collector items –floating shelves or personalized cubbies– and which can be free-play areas –area rugs, fabric cubes, or toy chests. They learn to understand those specific areas will get trampled, and toys will get broken. As they grow, they will see this happen naturally.

Learn how to repurpose art projects or materials into bins, baskets, or caddies. Look through thrift stores, hardware stores, or home goods stores for ideas, and don’t commit to a purchase until you understand its value and purpose. Some products are for particular things. Consider your options before buying them to ensure they fit the space, style, and toy dimensions. Let them create their toy boxes if they want. Creating helps them feel like they are part of the organizational process.

Please give them the items they need to organize and allow them to have them on hand when needed. If they are doing a bunch of art, consider different art caddies or rolling carts. Perhaps your child plays a lot of music. Consider other collapsible stands for the various instruments or a shelf to put their music boxes. If you have quantities of items like balls —hammocks, mesh bags, and over-the-door hangers are helpful. Check out this post for more product ideas.

Try to resist the urge to control every single aspect of your kid’s cleaning habits. Adults want to control everything, but letting kids control how it looks will increase their understanding of the task. Let them sticker up their bins, draw on inexpensive furniture, and even paint if they are capable.

Sometimes, I give my kids washable tempera paint to draw on their bookshelves and drawers. It washes right off. They even like using baby wipes to wash off the paint when they want to change the color.

Model Healthy Habits

Understanding that your behaviors influence how they interpret meaning is essential. Adults already understand how to organize based on their own personal belongings and experiences. Children haven’t gained the knowledge they need to decide how to tidy.

If you yell to clean up, they don’t necessarily understand that the point is cleanliness or safety. Kids will witness your behavior and mimic you. I know many parents are tired and would rather they just clean, but that just isn’t happening. Stop yelling, start gently encouraging, and model behaviors constantly.

Continue cleaning your adult space the way you prefer and discontinue the constant picking up of toys unless they are under 3-5 years old. If it is about safety, consider the activity placement to keep other family members safe.

Not only does modeling cleanliness and organizational skills show them that you value this skill, but limiting their exposure to unhealthy habits also reinforces the safer ones.

Consider whether a task is too big for them or if they genuinely misunderstand what you ask before you scream or threaten them. Go for a walk when you get upset or make some hot tea to show that you understand the steps to stay calm when you feel overwhelmed.

Move games and tripping hazards to the child’s space and remind them about safety. Suppose you must pick something up because you don’t have the time to explain it quickly. Put it into a box or a shopping bag in a corner. If a child feels frustrated that they can’t find something or don’t understand why an item is gone, stay connected to their feelings and revisit the conversation about safety.

Make it Fun!

Kids want to have fun! Create a fun cleaning station on a music device to help them associate with cleaning. Make cleaning an experience like eating, drawing, or shopping. Show your kids that it is a part of life and there are ways to make the boring stuff more enjoyable. Laurie Berkner and Caspar Babypants are my favorite singers for young kids. If your kids are older, introduce them to pop or metal. We love rocking out while we clean. Marianas Trench is a great pop band to listen to while cleaning.

If your kids like to toss, create a barrier of fabric cubes or wicker baskets to turn it into a tossing game. Make towers of books that threaten to fall and see if they can put them away before the tower topples. If they are rowdy and want to keep playing, gently remind them that the goal is to put away; you can have fun also.

Some kids like to run in circles around the house. Think of ways you can incorporate running and tossing into appropriate bins. If your children are talkative, play a game like Simon Says. Let them tell you what you must put away before they clean. And remind them that they must clean after the game, of course!

Is it possible for kids to clean their rooms?

Kids can clean their rooms. It will look different from what you expect, however. If you are not controlling or monitoring how it gets done, it will look like a kid’s room! When a child cleans their room when you ask, they learn different things related to various projects and activities they have out or open.

Gently reminding them of the task will help them understand better. They will likely get hung up on another skill they want to practice because it is more important than organizing. Ask them to put it aside until you make more room. Tell them the goal is to make more room for new ideas.

Is it OK to tell your child to clean their room?

Asking your child to clean their room is just fine. Yelling, screaming, and losing your temper isn’t the best. Depending on the child’s age, you may want to consider what you ask them to do. If you say, “Clean your room, please.” they may not understand. Start small like, “Put away your stuffed animals.” or “Here is a bin for your dinosaurs.”

Children want to see the value in this process before they understand why they should do it. If you learn to ask the right questions and help with their ideas, they will see that you are in their court. Kids may think you are the opponent. Show them that you genuinely care about their thoughts and want to show them a better way to manage a mess or organize a hobby.

How Many Toys Should a Child Have?

The number of toys a child should have is a personal and financial choice. Toys are expensive. Houses vary in size. People’s living situations differ, so the amount of items a child owns depends on the amount of space you can commit to a hobby and the cost. It could also depend on the intensity level of the child. Parents might see that their child’s temperament pressures them into purchasing more and more. Consider if this is a problem for you and consider alternative solutions to a child’s intense energy.

Kids should have enough clothing to get them through a week and toys that reflect their interests. If they like to build, they might have quantities of blocks. If they want to be outside, they might have one bike and one scooter. Children who enjoy dolls probably won’t have as many dolls as you have building blocks.

What Happens When Your Kids Have Too Many Toys?

When your children have too many toys, create a donate pile. Get an old plastic laundry hamper in a designated area for small clothing, toys, books, and games. Please encourage your children to go through old things seasonally to decide whether it is worth keeping. Model this practice as a parent and go through old items you no longer reach for.

Learn about local shops to donate to and see if re-selling is an option. Social media accounts have pages for regional areas; you upload a picture to offer it to other families.

Try repurposing old items. It can be fun to take toys you don’t play with and turn them into something else. Throw things in the trash when they break and consider whether an item can be an outside toy, a bath toy, or an art supply tool.

Changing a toy’s setting can change how it gets experienced. My family loves using Barbie doll accessories for glue art –chairs, beds, tables– to make our dollhouses. You can think of more creative ways to repurpose your things by understanding your child’s likes and changing the toy’s purpose.

Conclusion

Cleaning and organizing is a lifelong journey! One that adults have trouble with. Don’t expect children to understand the importance of it immediately. Stay calm and give them the tools for learning while modeling good practices; they will pick it up in no time.

Sources

Storage ideas for kids– products, practices, organization – Mission Momplex