7 Rules for Teaching Kids to Keep a Bathroom Organized

A bathroom is a place where a lot of things happen for children. Besides the obvious, kids are also taking baths or showers, brushing teeth, flossing, brushing hair, dressing and undressing, washing their face and on and on. We'd like to teach children how to clean a bathroom and how to keep it clean but first we need to teach them how to keep it organized. Getting and keeping the bathroom organized will get it uncluttered so that real cleaning can happen.

Imagine this Saturday morning nightmare where you approach the door to the kids' bathroom and...

First of all, you can hardly walk in because there are several pairs of jeans behind the door making it hard to open the door. There's a wet towel hanging over the door dripping in the floor (even though the jeans are catching some of it) and staining the door. There's a dirty Q-tip and flosser near the trashcan. The toothpaste, without a cap, is on the counter. There are four hair scrunchies on the corner of the counter. Inside the shower there are three empty bottles of shampoo, a pile of six wet washcloths that are starting to smell ripe and five small misshapen pieces of soap.

Keeping a bathroom organized means having a rule for everything that stays or comes into the bathroom. Here everything literally means everything. You would like to think that you don't have to say to kids "if it doesn't hit the trashcan, you must pick it up and try again" but sometimes we find that actually we do. While your rules may vary a bit, these are at least the 7 best categories of items to make a rule about.

1. The floor: There will be nothing on the floor except this rug and this trashcan. If it's not this trashcan or this rug and it's on the floor, refer to rules 2 through 7.

2. Dirty clothes: Dirty clothes will go in the hamper in the laundry room and clean clothes will be re-hung in your closet. Unless you are in the bathroom dressing or undressing, zero pieces of clothing will stay in this bathroom without a body.

3. Towels: This is where you will hang your towel at all times unless it is on your body.

(I know one smart mom with six kids who has color coded towels for kids. If there is a red towel on the floor, she knows who left it there.)

4. Washcloths: Today's washcloth can hang here to dry and tomorrow it leaves the bathroom with you and heads to the hamper. If you're leaving the bathroom today, you should have yesterday's washcloth with you.

5. Toothpaste and other essentials: This is where the toothpaste goes and the top must always be on it unless you're applying it to your toothbrush. Seriously, you're putting this stuff in your mouth so let's use the cap to keep out contaminants.

The same will go for finding a one and only place to store hair scrunchies, toothbrushes, acne pads, deodorant, retainers or anything that goes in the bathroom. It needs not just to "go in a drawer" but it needs to go "here in this drawer."

As you agree on a specific place for everything, ask kids to think about the common sense of not storing your deodorant next to your toothbrush or why your toe nail clippers maybe shouldn't go beside retainer.

6. Trash and trashcans: The bathroom trashcan will always have a liner and all trash will go in the trashcan. This includes empty bottles. If you want to go green and rinse the bottle and put it in the recycling bin that's great but the priority here is that it leaves the shower.

This is a good time to teach kids the trick about storing extra trashcan liners in the bottom of the trashcan so that when they take the full trash bag out, there's no excuse for putting in another liner.

7. Soap: This is the soap dish for the shower (or counter) and this is the only place soap should go when it's not in your hand. If it gets too small, it goes in the trashcan that has the liner.

Using these 7 rules will keep your kids' bathroom a lot more organized and make it a lot easier clean.