Teaching Your Toddler to Clean Up

Teaching your child from an early age to clean up his own messes can save you both time and trouble. If you make it a habit for your child to clean up after himself while he still young, chances are that he will continue to do so. You might have to ask him once in a while when he is older, but you will probably not have to actually clean his room for him when he is older.

It may seem like you will be cleaning up after your infant forever, but really it isn't very hard to start teaching your child to pick up his own toys. If you make it fun for him, he will start helping around his first birthday. Even if it starts out with him only bringing you a toy a two a day, encourage him. Once his attention span is a little longer, he will be picking up more and more of his own toys. Before you know it, he will be picking up all of his toys on his own.

Teaching your child to clean up after himself can help him in other ways, too. If you play a game asking him to bring you all the red toys, for example, it will help him learn his colors, too. Playing games while putting toys away will also give the two of you time to bond. It will teach your child the importance of taking care of his things and putting them away.

A game that my son really enjoys playing while picking up is putting away all the toys that fit a certain description. I clap for him when he brings me the right toys. He gets really excited about the clapping, and that encourages him to bring me another toy. When he is first learning a new classification especially, I point to the specific toys that fit. That way he knows where to start. When he brings me a toy, whether it fits the classification or not, I tell him thank you and show him which bin it goes in, or I let him put it in the bin himself. If the toy doesn't fit the current classification, I tell him what classification it fits in. For example, if I ask him to bring his blue blocks, and he brings me a red one, I say "Oh, thank you for the red block, Elliott. Can you bring me a blue one now?" When he brings me the blue one, I clap and say "Yay! Thank you for the blue block, Elliott!"

Another game you can play with a toddler learning to pick up his own toys is to have a race. See who can pick up the most blocks and put them away first. Kids love to do stuff like this. However, it is definitely not something you should do when you are cleaning up for nap or bedtime.

If your toddlers are older, you could also try giving them rewards for cleaning up. Let them have extra story at night when they clean up when you ask them to. Maybe you could even occasionally give them new toys or new books when they do an especially good job. Do whatever rewards work for your family.

No matter what method you choose, try to start the clean up process early in your child's life. It will become second nature and you might have a great little helper before long. As soon as a baby is mobile, he's old enough to help, one toy at a time.