How to Get Your Kids to Clean Their Rooms

Throughout history, parents have had difficulties getting kids to clean their rooms. It is a fact of life that the majority of children have a natural aversion to cleaning and picking up! There are a few methods that work, however. I suggest you try them one by one and use the method that works for your family.

If your kids are still toddlers or preschoolers, you should start now with teaching them to pick up every evening or when they finish playing with something. It is impossible to teach this later on, so get a head start and it will hopefully pay off in the future!

Making cleaning a fun game works often for younger kids. Turn it into a contest, see who can pick up the most blocks in a two minute period or who can bring you the most dirty clothes. If you only have one child, you can participate in the challenge yourself, getting down and putting toys into a box with an "I'm going to beat you! I'm going to pick up more toys!"

Once kids reach a certain age, they realize that cleaning is not a game and you won't be able to fool them anymore. At this stage, it's time to break out the reward system. A simple sticker chart works for many families. On a large sheet of colored paper, mark off seven columns and one row for each child in the household. The columns should be marked with days of the week and the rows with the children's names. Every day that they pick up their rooms before bed, they get a sticker to put in that day's square. You can have a special treat at the end of the week for anyone who managed to get a sticker in every square.

If you wish to break the chores up to make them seem more manageable, you can make a chart for each child, with the chores in the rows. These might include things like making the bed, picking up toys, putting dirty laundry in the basket, etc. Use drawings for children who can't read yet.

Another method that many parents use is the five minute clean up. Each night before bed, the egg timer is set for five minutes and everyone in the house has to pick things up for those five minutes. It is an easy amount of time, but you can really clean up an amazing amount in just those few minutes.

Finally, you might want to try the basket method. This is a bit more extreme, but if you have older kids, particularly adolescents, it can be very effective. You need a laundry basket and a strong will for this technique. Warn your kids that anything on the floor at the end of the day will be stored for 3 months (or thrown out, depending on how harsh you want to be). Go in at a set time, say 6 pm, and pick up anything you find laying around. These items should all go into plastic garbage bags and stored in a locked closet to which only you have the key. Once a vital homework assignment or an Mp3 player has been confiscated, you will notice that your kids clean up a lot faster and earlier than before!

It might still be a struggle to get your kids to clean their rooms, but at least things can go a little smoother with the techniques given above. Try the various methods and see which one works for you.