Organization Incentives: Give Your Kids a Reason to Clean their Room

May 27, 2016

Do you ever feel like the villain in a children’s story when you force your kids to clean their room? The yelling on your part and tantrums on their part don’t make for a very peaceful home. Sometimes you may feel like giving up and just allowing them to keep their room looking like a veritable pigsty.

Fortunately, there’s a better option – you just need to know how to convince your kids to clean their room on their own terms. Try these four kids’ room organization incentives and see if they provide the results you want.

Make Cleaning a Game

This is a particularly good incentive for younger kids, especially if they have a competitive streak. Announce that you’re going to clean your room faster than your kids can clean theirs. It’s a race, and whoever wins gets to pick what’s for lunch (or some other incentive that interests your kids).

Give Them Control

Use this incentive for older kids and teens. Early in the week, explain to your children that their room need to be clean before they hang out with friends this weekend. They can wait until the last minute if they choose, but if this makes them late to a party or other get-together, they’ll probably learn to manage their time better next week.

It’s easy to be lenient and tell your children they can skip cleaning their room this week just this once, but if you don’t want perpetually dirty bedrooms to become the norm, stick to your guns. Over time, your children should learn that if they keep their room tidy, they don’t have to take any extra time to clean up before they go out with friends.

Offer Positive Reinforcement

When your children appease your wishes to keep their room clean, let them know how much you appreciate it. Explain how nice it is to walk in to their bedroom without tripping over clothes, toys and school papers. Keep your compliment lighthearted and focus more on praising your kids when they clean their room rather than scolding them when they don’t. This positive reinforcement encourages good behavior better than negativity.

Give Them the Organizational Space They Need

It’s difficult to keep any room looking nice if there’s no good place to store anything. This could be the main struggle your children have with keeping their room clean! To combat this problem, hook your kids up with a dresser, shelves, under-bed boxes and kids’ room closet storage solutions. This could be the answer to helping your kids keep their room clean.

For more inspiration, come explore different ways to organize your kids’ bedrooms. Then contact us for a free Carolina closet installation estimate so you can supply your kids with the storage solutions they need to stay organized.

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