Teaching Your Child To Clean Up Their Room

Cleaning is a difficult task, but it offers a lot of benefits aside from just having a tidy space.

The process of cleaning is associated with a lot of positive mental health outcomes. Cleaning provides children with a sense of responsibility. It also helps in promoting adaptive living and building self-esteem.

While it may look easier to complete the task of cleaning for them, encouraging them to do it on their own sets the stage for success and they learn to be independent.

There are many ways to make cleaning more enjoyable and less of a chore.

Give them a hand to start

Cleaning the entire room for the children is not beneficial for them. But you will get appreciation and your child will benefit if you help them with the cleaning process in the start.

Children learn through modelling, and when you work with them they are more encouraged and motivated to do their work by themselves. As your child slowly gets a hand over the cleaning process, you can decrease your involvement.

Ease into the task

Suddenly giving the cleaning task to a child can create a problem. It can be more helpful if we provide a warning that playtime is about to end. For eg., when we are watching a favourite TV show and someone suddenly turns off the TV, we are pissed at that moment.

So, kids need some time to wind down and prepare themselves for a less interesting and less enjoyable activity like cleaning. A verbal warning is enough for a small child, but some older children may react better to a time cue like, “ Let’s clean up in 5 minutes”.

Give them praise

Providing small rewards to the children can strengthen their cleaning behaviour among children. Children can be reinforced with small yet tangible rewards like a sticker on their chart which will likely increase their chances of cleaning in the future because they get a sense of accomplishment and giving rewards also increases their self-esteem.

Older children can be provided with some other rewards like increased screen time, playing out with friends for some more time, etc.

Provide specific tasks

It is a very helpful strategy to motivate and encourage the child towards cleanliness. Giving a specific task instead of cleaning the whole room is a nice way, as cleaning the whole room looks overwhelming for small children. Focusing on a particular task makes children mindful of how they need to do something.