How to Organize Kids Bedrooms

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How to organize children’s rooms so they can help maintain them.

Streamlining kids rooms is a challenge. Putting things away does not come naturally to children. (Adults either, for that matter.)

All you can do to buck nature's more laid-back tendencies in kids is to set up simple, fun ways for kids to maintain the system.

These 10 tips can help make the process a bit more tolerable for everyone:

1. Get Your Child Involved in the Process.

Listen to her ideas; go through her possessions together. Cull as much as possible with her input; set disputed items aside.

For the iffy items: try to persuade her that her outgrown toys will mean the world to a less-fortunate younger girl and just might be worth parting with for that reason alone.

2. Contain Everything.

The container is your friend. The container is especially your child's friend.

Kids often make the biggest messes looking for something on a surface (where it usually isn't) and leaving the flying byproducts to lie where they land. This is not good.

Instead, cut down on the fly-bys by putting items that he plays with together in a single box, bin or container.

Not only will he not make a mess of the entire room and still not find his stuff, he'll now actually know where to go get- and to actually put these items back.

3. Make Everything Kid-Accessible.

If they can’t reach it, they can’t get it and they can’t put it back. It's that simple.

Use all the kid-accessible areas in the room to keep items in reach: Store bins of toys under beds, in stacking crates in closets, hanging on the backs of doors, on shelves, etc.

4. Hide Things in Plain Sight.

If Brittany collects Breyer horses, let them double as décor and display them throughout her room. Don’t hide Daniel’s swimming ribbons in a drawer when you can string them clothesline-style across the ceiling.

5. Rotate Toys.

Store toys and equipment that are not currently in use. Baseball gloves can go to the attic for the winter; ice skates can disappear during the summer.

6. Create Activity Areas.

Make the room a fun place to hang out. Even the smallest room can accommodate a reading nook – a beanbag chair cozied up to a bookshelf or even a bookshelf beside the bed. You'll also need to plot a place where children can do homework or artwork. Nix the TV.

7. Simplify Dressing.

Assign one drawer for shirts; one drawer for pants, etc. Roll soft items like pajamas and T-shirts so the kids can see all their choices at one glance. In closets, group dresses, skirts, blouses, jackets. Some people lower clothing racks for easy access but I’d rather get their clothes for them so they can use closet bottoms to store toys and games.

8. Contain Clutter.

Kids are not going to always pick up after themselves so provide baskets to contain items until they do put them away. They need a clothes hamper, too. One topped with a basketball hoop will encourage use.

9. Give Them a Place to Play.

If their room doesn’t have a lot of floor space, find some area in the house (den, kitchen, playroom) where they can spread out occasionally and easily organize it at clean-up time.

10. Don't Have Too Many Rules.

It’s their room, after all. Instead, just make two or three important ones – and enforce them. I have two:

1. Tidy up before bed. and

2. Make the bed every morning.

Now about all those crayons, markers and coloring books that inevitably make their way into our little one's room - why not organize a kids craft corner? It will corral those last few items of your child's newly organized home.