You’re going about your merry day when all of the sudden you get a phone call from your mother-in-law who wants to come visit you and the kids. Panic immediately sets in as you realize your house is a heaping mess and you don’t have enough time to clean every last inch before she comes. We’ve all had this, or a similar situation, happen to us before. Suddenly we turn into Super Woman and speed clean our entire house. However, when it comes to our children’s rooms, we can certainly use their help or have them do it on their own if they are old enough. Kids often times get distracted and lazy when cleaning, but there are 5 tricks you can teach them to help them “clean” their room in a jiffy. Using this method won’t get their room spotless clean, however it will make it presentable.
1. Make The Bed
The first step to getting a tidy room quickly is to make the bed. If there is anything on the bed, have your child quickly throw it all off so it can be made. Now, since the goal is to get their room clean in 10 minutes, don’t expect a professional bed making. Have your child simply pull the sheets and covers up, straighten them out, and prop the pillows up. It doesn’t have to be perfect, it just needs to look neat in order for the room to look clean. This should only take your child about 1 minute to do.
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2. Put All Clothes On The Bed
Now, I know what you are thinking. We just cleared and made the bed and now you want to make a mess on it again by throwing all the clothes on it? There is a purpose and here is why. The floor already has way too many things on it between clothes, shoes, toys, trash etc. It will be easier for your child to sort through those things when all of the clothes are removed from that equation. The toys and other things will be put away separately from the clothes, so, for now, put all the clothes on the bed. Have your child grab as much clothes as they can in their arms and dump them on the bed, which should only take about 2 minutes. Do this until all the clothes are removed from the floor. Don’t worry about sorting the clothes just yet. The point is to make tidying their room simple, straight forward, and fast, so small steps will work the best to help them achieve this.
3. Sort Items Into Staying and Going
This step will be one of the longer steps and can take up to 5 minutes to do. Have your child move through the room and sort through all the toys and other items that are laying on the floor and furniture. Every item will either stay in their room or go out. For the items that stay in their room they can put those back in their proper place. For the items that don’t belong in the room like plates, their sister’s shoes, cups, etc., they will put in a separate basket. Once all of those items are put in the basket, it will be put outside their door until they are all done cleaning their room. The purpose for this is that often times when cleaning a room, kids can easily get distracted and discouraged walking all over the house to put items back where they belong. It will also take much longer to clean their actual room if they do that. Once the room is all clean, the basket of items not meant to be in the room can be dealt with and put away.
Source: Laura Ritchie via Flickr
4. Pick Up The Trash
Now that the floor and furniture are clear of all the junk, all that should be left to clean up is any trash that needs to be thrown away. Grab a trash can, put it in the center of the room and have your child gather all the trash they can fit in their arms and dump it in the trash can. This should be relatively quick and only take about 1 to 2 minutes. Once this step is done, the room is almost clean!
5. Sort The Clothing
This will most likely be the most time consuming step, but the hope is that it won’t take much longer than 5 minutes. Have your child sort through all the clothing on the bed into a clean or dirty pile. Have them look at, and possibly sniff, the garment to see if it is clean or dirty. Have your child put all the dirty clothes in the laundry basket so it can then be taken to the laundry room when they are finished sorting. All of the clean clothes will need to then be put away. Your child might need your help folding and hanging their clothes, but at least they were able to do most of the work on the rest of the room themselves. Once this step is done, enjoy their tidy room while it lasts, because we all know that kid’s rooms are impossible to keep clean.
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Mary Mulroney
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