A Mom Creates The Perfect Step-By-Step Breakdown For Teaching Your Kid To Clean Their Room
This hack makes cleaning "easier to execute and kind of fun."
Once you think you’ve conquered that part of parenting where meal times are a complete battle and bedtime routines are waking nightmares, a whole new parent-child battle comes into play: getting them to clean their freaking room!
Personally, I love when my daughter’s room has evidence of play and imagination (aka, a big mess), but obviously, there comes a time when the floor is a minefield and I’ve stepped on my last Duplo before I reach my breaking point.
So, how do you get your kid to clean their room, especially when the space has become so messy that you (and your kid) don’t even know where to start? It’s time to break it down!
How to get your kid to clean their room?
TikTok parenting account @mightyandbrightco explains that having a simple and easy-to-follow checklist can make all the difference when encouraging your kid to clean their room. Bonus? Their tips are also totally applicable for adults who feel buried by a cluttered, messy house.
“The truth is — keeping a room clean, let alone a whole house, is a skill that involves lots of little tasks,” they explain in the now-viral video. “If you know how to tidy a room, you might take those little tasks for granted, but for kids, being faced with a messy room is totally overwhelming. They have no idea where to start.”
They recommend breaking down a large task into small, manageable to-dos that are easy to check off and complete with ease. This will make the entire mission of cleaning a disastrous room not seem so daunting to a child.
They continue, “When we teach kids how to break down a big task, like cleaning a room into manageable chunks. We make this big chore easier to execute and kind of fun. After all, who doesn't like checking things off of a to-do list?”
So true! I will literally make a to-do list and add some tasks that I already completed just so that I can cross them off and feel a little bit of momentum to get the rest of the list done. Work smarter, not harder, people!
They also recommend working with your kid in the beginning to ease into the process and using a visual aid. Mighty + Bright makes their own nifty Room Reset Board, but it’s just as easy to make your own checklist chart.
“The first couple of times we might need to go through the steps with them, but once they get the hang of it, you can add a room reset to their weekly task chart and they'll know what to do,” they said.
The viral video also offers the step-by-step process they recommend for guiding a child to clean their room. They even include a mini-breakdown tactic for the intimidating task of putting all that clutter away: put it all away by color! And, of course, the entire cleaning extravaganza ends with a good old fashioned dance party.
Children's room cleaning checklist
- Get a trash bag
- Put trash in the bag
- Dirty dishes in the sink
- Get laundry basket
- Dirty clothes in basket
- Clean clothes in drawer
- Get a “no home” box
- Put away items by color
- Throw away trash
- Find a home for “No Home” items
- Have a dance party in your clean room!
As the video states, research proves that clutter can affect one’s mental health. Disorganization and clutter can have an negative effect on a persons brain. Humans instinctually like order and routine, when we are put into environments with constant visual reminders of clutter and disorganization, this can “drain our cognitive resources which can “reduce our working memory.”
“So yes, it is awesome that they'll be able to clean their room without you nagging, but the added benefit is even better. They'll learn a skill that will benefit their mental health for a lifetime,” they concluded.
