How to Get Your Child to Clean Up
Two or three is a perfect age to start teaching your child how to help clean up.
At this age it is still just as fun to put toys in a toy box as taking toys out of one.
Here are some tips to make this a part of your daily routine.
Best Time to Clean Up? The best time to clean up is right before bedtime.
Do it at about the same time every night...
preferably in the same order.
If you have an established routine of dressing for bed, brushing teeth, bedtime story, simply select when you want to add in clean up time.
Organization System Whether you prefer a toy box, large bins, or baskets, you need to have somewhere that your child can identify as the place to put away their toys, books and animals.
Having a couple places for them to put their toys helps a great deal with the cleaning up especially in a two storied home.
Have one toy box upstairs and one downstairs makes it a lot easier to keep toys organized.
It can be difficult to keep toys only in one area! How do you teach them to put away toys? At this age a great deal is learned through watching and copying...
so you need to show them.
Simply telling them to put away their toys isn't going to get you the results you want.
It also takes patience and lots of encouragement.
Children at this age will get easily distracted, may start playing with the toys in the middle of clean up and of course they move at a snails pace.
Continue to give them gentle reminders to help you clean up and praise when they put things away.
What about learning to put things away after each use? That would be ideal however at two years of age, there is not much point in doing it earlier in the day.
It is likely that you'll have a mess just a few minutes later! To help minimize the mess, designate a play area for items like blocks which can become a hazard in hallways and high traffic areas.
Having a few extra bins or baskets makes it easy to do a quick straightening up if needed.
As your child gets older, you can teach them the importance of putting away things right after playing especially items such as games with game pieces or puzzle pieces.
Reward Systems Reward systems with charts, stickers are fun and can be very effective but are best done with older toddlers who are able to understand the purpose.
If you have older toddlers, and try a reward system or chart, the key to effectiveness is consistency.
They need to be rewarded each time they do the required task.
Rewarding immediately with the sticker or smiley face on the wall chart or the token in the container also becomes important in order to reinforce the correct behavior.
Expectations If they help put away a couple books and one toy at first...
be sure to praise them! They just put away three items you didn't have to.
Making this a daily event will help reinforce this behavior and soon you will have great little helpers!
At this age it is still just as fun to put toys in a toy box as taking toys out of one.
Here are some tips to make this a part of your daily routine.
Best Time to Clean Up? The best time to clean up is right before bedtime.
Do it at about the same time every night...
preferably in the same order.
If you have an established routine of dressing for bed, brushing teeth, bedtime story, simply select when you want to add in clean up time.
Organization System Whether you prefer a toy box, large bins, or baskets, you need to have somewhere that your child can identify as the place to put away their toys, books and animals.
Having a couple places for them to put their toys helps a great deal with the cleaning up especially in a two storied home.
Have one toy box upstairs and one downstairs makes it a lot easier to keep toys organized.
It can be difficult to keep toys only in one area! How do you teach them to put away toys? At this age a great deal is learned through watching and copying...
so you need to show them.
Simply telling them to put away their toys isn't going to get you the results you want.
It also takes patience and lots of encouragement.
Children at this age will get easily distracted, may start playing with the toys in the middle of clean up and of course they move at a snails pace.
Continue to give them gentle reminders to help you clean up and praise when they put things away.
What about learning to put things away after each use? That would be ideal however at two years of age, there is not much point in doing it earlier in the day.
It is likely that you'll have a mess just a few minutes later! To help minimize the mess, designate a play area for items like blocks which can become a hazard in hallways and high traffic areas.
Having a few extra bins or baskets makes it easy to do a quick straightening up if needed.
As your child gets older, you can teach them the importance of putting away things right after playing especially items such as games with game pieces or puzzle pieces.
Reward Systems Reward systems with charts, stickers are fun and can be very effective but are best done with older toddlers who are able to understand the purpose.
If you have older toddlers, and try a reward system or chart, the key to effectiveness is consistency.
They need to be rewarded each time they do the required task.
Rewarding immediately with the sticker or smiley face on the wall chart or the token in the container also becomes important in order to reinforce the correct behavior.
Expectations If they help put away a couple books and one toy at first...
be sure to praise them! They just put away three items you didn't have to.
Making this a daily event will help reinforce this behavior and soon you will have great little helpers!
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