Teaching Your Little Children To Clean

By Shiloah Baker

We bought about 4-5 large Rubbermaid bins at Wal-mart.  They are about $3.50 each.  We organized all of their toys.  Stuffed animals in one bin, toy food and dishes in another, etc.   We put them in their closets and put a hook and eye type lock on the very top of the closets.  They cannot get into the toys. 

When its time to play we get out one bin of toys at a time.   I do let them have a few miscellaneous toys out such as two buckets of blocks.  Cailynn gets her Barbie bin available.   Every night when its time for bed they only have small amounts of toys to clean up.  We have to go in there with them.  They won't just go and clean their toys up when we tell them to.  We have to be right there over-seeing them.  It is really a pain, but it always pays off.  

Every morning when the kids get up I am there to help them get dressed.  Then I have them make their beds.  They love getting compliments on how wonderfully they make their beds. One thing I read somewhere was to never redo what they did.  So, even if the bed is still kind of sloppy don't redo it, or they will think that they aren't good enough and won't want to try hard anymore.  

If we do get a bin of toys out and they make a mess with it and they want to go and watch TV or play with blocks or something, I will not let them until the bin of toys is all cleaned up.    It's been a battle trying to teach all three of them, but they are catching on and things are getting easier because we are being consistent.

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