Teach Your Child How to Organize His or Her Closet

Let's face it, cleaning up the house is not a fun task. Most adults have full time jobs, and some of us work 2 jobs. For those of you with full time jobs, and children in the home, getting them to pitch in can sometimes be difficult. However a method my mother consistently used on me as a child is a method I actually still use today, and pass on to children in the family.

Making clean up, and organizing fun actually will do you a world of wonders. Plus it is one less thing you have to clean up.

Most kids already know how to pick up after themselves by the time they are 4. Their rooms may look pretty clean, but look under the bed, or the dreaded closet and it's usually a whole other story. A story of messes and mayhem.

My niece in particular keeps a neat and tidy room, however her cleaning method includes piling things up to the ceiling in her closet, and hiding garbage under her bed for when she is told to clean up.

Organizing her closet is like a nightmare, and after opening it up and realizing why, it all made sense. Her closet only consists of a hanger bar, and a floor. There were no shelves for organizing, no cubbies for placing items such as arts and crafts. Instead what we had was a pile of everything, all rolled into one huge mess. So badly that I doubt she would even look for something in there if she wanted to.

Organization boxes, and a simple shoe rack could have made a huge difference.

You can buy simple closet organizers at Walmart or Target, which keep children from piling things on the floor in the closet. Organizing shelves make it easier for children to neatly place their things in. You can even label shelves and cubbies to make it easier for them to remember where things go.

Plastic containers like these, can be used to place toys in quickly. Smaller containers can hold lose crayons and markers.

Purchasing a simple weekly clothing organizer like here, make organizing a lot of fun, and not so much a task. This organizer uses days of the week in order for the child to pick their outfits for the week.
To keep a child on top of keeping things organized in a closet, they are going to need organizers. You cannot expect them to keep things tidy and neat if all they have to work with is a hanger bar. You need cubbies, shelves, racks, and plastic containers in order to keep things neat.

You can buy things separately, or you can buy all out full closet organizer's such as these. Keep things fun by adding a reward system to keeping the room, and the closet neat. My mom would room check every single day, and on the wall there was a calendar where she would place a star sticker every time the room was neat. If we had 5 or more stickers by the end of the week, we got a reward in the form of a toy, a game, or whatever my brother and I could agree on. Reward systems always worked in my family, and they should work in yours too.