How to Organize Your Kids Play Room/Bedroom

How to Organize Your Kids Play Room/Bedroom
By Claire McFee

When it comes to kids – there has to be a degree of flexibility when it comes to helping them learn how to be better organized, considering that they have the infuriating ability to trash a room that has taken you two hours to re-organize. But due to their age and developmental stage, there needs to be ‘free play’ and exploration for optimum learning within the home environment. There are two important tricks when it comes to keeping your kids rooms and play areas organized.
No 1: Include them in the organizing process
No 2: Don’t make it a huge, overwhelming ‘clean up’ every time you tackle it
Have a Talk With your Kids
Firstly ask your children what their favorite activities are, so that if any re-arranging and organizing needs to occur, you can do it jointly, so they feel more a part of the process and are therefore more likely to take care keeping the area tidy.

Sort/Organize into Related Groups

Make this relative to the activity they are used for, such as music materials; arts and crafts; dress up clothes; games & puzzles, toys, computer games; books DVD’s etc.

Break the Steps it down further

Big piles can be broken down even further for example: puzzles can be broken into large floor puzzles as opposed to small table top puzzles; similarly big blocks should be kept apart from small blocks; car separate from trains etc

Organize and Assess

Ask your children about the toys as you go through them, discussing how much they have; how often they use it all and how much they actually enjoy them. They may well have grown out of some of the toys; board games or arts and crafts; some books and especially the inordinate amount of stuffed animals our children seem to accumulate from a young age.

Charity Benefits

Discussing with your children the numerous benefits of passing along items they no longer need (as opposed to want) is crucial to have a happy partnership with them when choosing what stays and what goes. You can do mini culls when they are younger without their input, as this admittedly can take a little adjusting to. Giving away something perfectly good just because they haven’t looked, let alone played with it for over 12 months!! This is a concept that grows on them with age and maturity.

Toys become Like Wallpaper

I remember reading once that if you have all your children’s toys out all of the time, they all just become like the wall paper, not really being ‘seen’ and therefore certainly not being used to their full potential. With this in mind it is a good idea to rotate some toys to make best use of them. Organize some alternative storage for them in cupboards or the garage and mix it up every few months.

Create different ‘play room zones’

Explain the reason for doing this, so your children understand the reasoning behind it, namely to not end up with one big mosh pit of toys all mixed up yet again. Reminding and initially helping your children pack up one activity before starting to play with another, is necessary for it to become a habit. Just as with us adults, it takes time to become ‘automatic’. Kids need time for the habit to sink in too.

Storage Options

Saving for a built-in storage system may well be worth it, to prevent more chaos and mess. Having the inevitable mismatched plastic containers/ boxes & wooden baskets we tend to accumulate over the year, they look dreadful. When choosing a colour scheme, it’s easy to get excited and think lots of color will look great, but before you know it the kids are teenagers and have well and truly outgrown bright décor – so stick with neutrals.

Make sure it Matches darling!

If you do buy matching containers to store your child’s belongings, just make sure they are durable and match what you already have in the house. It will look so much nicer and you will feel better for it. Many people mistakenly buy storage products prematurely in the organizing process because they are attracted by the streamlined containers, lulling them into a false sense of security. Wait until you know exactly what you have left to store – and the shelf, cabinet or space it is intended for. Take some measurements then purchase the right product at the right time and save yourself your hard earned money.

Maintain

Now that you’ve tackled the backlog and established new storage systems, review the revitalized play room with your children, and give them the responsibility of putting things away at the end of each day! Immediately establish a routine for how they will keep the room organized – i.e.: everything picked up and put away at the end of each day or there will be consequences.

We all benefit

Keeping a child’s room Organized is for everyone in the household. Explaining the positives as you go, directly and indirectly will help instil good organizational skills in your children. Here, Here to that!! The obvious benefits are saving time when looking for things, but also the intangible – having a clearer mind when you have a de-cluttered room. This can not be downplayed, as there is a lot of merit to it – believe me!!

Over Stacking Warning

Keep in mind that if your child’s toys are hidden behind each other, then the likelihood of a huge mess being made and an unhappy camper who has to clean it up by just looking for something not even playing with them. So don’t over store and stack toys or this could turn into a problem for you. Whatever is preventable in my book – prevent!!

Organizing doesn’t have to be a chore!

Keeping things organized, no matter whose they are and where they belong, doesn’t have to feel like a chore. It’s all about attitude and this can be taught to anyone of any age. The earlier the better of course! Staying organized can be good clean fun. Have a race between you or a sibling to see who can clean up the quickest.