Teaching your little ones to tidy up after themselves is one of the most important life skills they can learn. It instills discipline, a sense of responsibility, and not to mention, it makes our lives as parents a little bit easier, right?!

As a parent, you know firsthand how clean-up time can quickly become a challenge, but it doesn’t have to be! We can make it easy, enjoyable, and even exciting. Today, I’m sharing practical and effective strategies to teach kids to clean up after themselves.  

How To Teach Your Child To Clean Up After Themselves 

Start at an early age.

When you teach kids at an early age how to clean up, making it a routine and habit when they get older is much easier. Little ones love to copy everything we do anyway, so include them in cleaning when they’re young and still think it’s fun!

When you’re walking around the living room and picking up toys, fluffing cushions, even vacuuming the floors, you’ll often notice that younger children act as your little shadow—they just want to be like you! In this case, let them!  

Teaching kids to clean up after themselves at an early age is a great way to help them gain a sense of responsibility and adapt to their own autonomy! 

Set realistic expectations. 

Of course, young children won’t be able to polish and shine like mom or dad can, but we can’t expect them to! That’s why it’s important to set realistic expectations when it comes to teaching kids how to clean. 

For example, it’s not realistic to expect a two-year-old to understand how to organize blocks by color, size, and shape but they can definitely throw them all into a basket! Additionally, it’s unreasonable to expect your 6-year-old to do laundry, but there’s no reason they can’t put their clothes in the hamper and help pair socks! The point is, keep it simple and achievable!

Providing attainable clean up tasks is a great way to demonstrate achievement and task completion! 

Have a place for everything. 

Cleaning up can be super overwhelming if you’re not sure where to put things. Imagine going to someone’s house and being asked to clean-up their clutter. It’d be so stressful to figure out a spot for each item!

Your kids will feel similarly if you have no discernible organization. From a young age, a child can make sense of where things “go,” if it’s consistent, visual, accessible, and clear. Plus, this will confirm you actually get the clean-up job you want!

If you’re not sure of how to organize your play space, watch my Messy Playroom Makeover! 

Set a timer. 

In my house, one of the ways I am really able to motivate my kiddos to engage in clean up time is by setting a timer. When you set a timer for clean up time, it’s a fantastic way to make a game out of it, to encourage time management, and to even inspire a small dose of healthy competition.

If you want to maintain a positive atmosphere, you could even play a song rather than set a timer, giving your kids until the end of the song(s) to finish tidying up. Dance party AND clean up time all in one?!? Everybody wins! 

Allow them to choose. 

I can’t be the only previously-perfectionist-before-kids mom out here it’s okay to let that go! Kids are naturally curious little beings, and stimulating decision-making at a young age can really help them actually want to engage in specific tasks!

You can do this by asking things like, “which bin do you think the Legos go best in?” Or even, “how would you organize these paint colors?” Or, you could just ask them what they would like to pick up first! Allowing your little ones to take part in the decision-making process allows them to feel more in control over what they do! 

Contemplate rewards for good behavior.

While teaching your kids to clean up after themselves is a necessary skill, it can still be rewarded from time to time! Especially in the beginning. Children love to hear that they’re doing a good job. 

Positive reinforcements and reward systems are tried and true for a reason they’re good ways to encourage good behavior until the behavior becomes routine. It’s also a beneficial way to help increase self-esteem! 

Create chore charts.

This tip is helpful as your little ones become school-aged, and can fully grasp the idea of following along a specific system. Creating chore charts is a great way to inspire your kids to stay on track as they get older, as well as incorporate chores into their lives as a habit rather than, well.. A chore!

This could even go hand-in-hand with the reward system. For example, if your children do all of their chores for the week, maybe they get one extra hour of playing time!

And even though we hate disciplining our kids, we have to at times to help them learn and grow. Chore charts are a good way to demonstrate and instill discipline when necessary. 

Make clean up time fun. 

Children learn best when they’re interested and engaged in something. And the best way to ensure that they’re interested and engaged? Turn clean up time into a game!

A task automatically becomes ten times more appealing when children feel as if they are achieving or winning something. Need an example? For dirty clothes, turn it into a laundry basket basketball! Set up your “goals”, ball up dirty clothes, and have them “score” when they make it into the laundry basket. 

Use sensory activities to help teach little ones.

If you still have tiny little ones who can’t fully grasp what it even means to clean up, I didn’t leave you out! Sensory activities don’t just encourage independent play, they also act as a great introduction to the world of tidying up.

Take this ocean clean-up sensory bag activity for example! You create an ocean-themed sensory bag, add in some metallic fish stickers, and throw in some clutter using paper clips and pipe cleaner.

Having to “fish out” the mess is an easy and fun way to introduce toddlers and preschool-aged children to the importance of maintaining a clean environment at a young age! 

Teaching your little ones the importance of cleaning up can be easy!

You may think that teaching your child to clean up after themselves is going to be harder to navigate, but there are ways to simplify it! You can make cleaning up fun! 

For tons of different tips, tricks, and helpful hints, visit the Mothercould blog! For plenty of sensory activities, recipes, and step-by-step tutorials, download Mothercould in your Pocket! Let’s encourage responsibility and beneficial life lessons together!