Kids may not enjoy doing chores – really, who does – but with the right incentives, you can get your kids involved in household tidiness. It is best to start when kids are young, and even very small children can learn little tasks that contribute to the overall tidiness in a house. Toddlers can be taught that tidiness can be fun. Encourage them to put away their toys. Young siblings can make it into a game by seeing who can finish first and you can add to the game element by putting pictures on toy boxes or toy baskets so the kids can visually see where the items go. Show younger children how to toss their clothes into kid-sized hampers. Visual, colorful charts that show the children what chores they need to do, with markers that show when the chore is complete, can help reinforce that participating in household tidiness is fun.

Pre-schoolers, once they are tall enough, can make their own beds each morning. If parents set up bed making as a daily expectation for a child early on, it is more likely this chore will be carried on into teen years as well. Kids this age can also reliably put clothing away, as long as the drawers are within reach. Again, pictures on the outsides or insides of drawers can help kids determine the right place to put away their clean laundry. Elementary-age children can almost always reliably make their beds and as they get older, more tasks can be added as they help with household tidiness. Once again, depending on height, these children can empty dishwashers and put away dishes, wipe up counters in their bathrooms, hang up their own clothing, and run vacuum cleaners and sweepers. Parents are the best judges of the age-appropriateness of any chore, but it is best to leave anything that involves potentially dangerous household machinery, like a washing machine, or toxic cleaner until the child is older.

Junior high and high school kids, as they become busier with school activities and part-time jobs, may need more incentives than younger kids to do household chores. This is an excellent time to create chore lists that are tied to allowances or amounts paid per task completed. Kids this age are able to do much more safely that contributes to household tidiness, like wash and dry loads of laundry, help clean up after meals, and do deeper cleaning that involves chemicals smaller kids should not handle.

If you start young, make it fun and then later make it profitable for your kids to be involved in household tidiness, you’ll set habits that kids are more likely to follow later in life and your house will be much tidier for your efforts.

Before you begin to clean your kids mess, take a look around your home. Has your child taken over the house? Are there clothes and toys everywhere? Well, it’s not your child’s fault. Most children create messes easily, but when the house has reached a messy state they can become easily overwhelmed and may not have the skills needed to clean up the large mess. However, these skills can be learned over time. The first thing you need to do is help teach your child the skills they need to become a bit more organized. Begin to clean your kids’ mess by collecting a few supplies.

The first step to cleaning your kids’ mess will be to collect various boxes and bins, a timer, some paper to take notes, a lot of time, and the ability to be patient with your child.

You need to take a look at one individual room at a time. Make sure that you start with a room that is not too overwhelming for your child to handle. Have your child look at the mess in the room and decide if they can distinguish categories of items. Make a list of all the items that might be in the piles. You can look for clothes, books, toys etc. Take out one of the bins and give it to your child along with the labeled note card. Set the timer for five minutes and challenge your child to get all of the like objects together in the bin by the end of the time. Turn cleaning your kids mess into a fun game. If they associate cleaning with fun, they will be more likely to do it in the future.

Then you can divide the room up into sections and race your child to see who can organize that section the fastest. Another strategy to cleaning your kids mess will be to set up a “basketball game.” Have your child try to throw toys into a basket and give them a point for the most toys that made it into a basket. After a while of playing the game, pick up the remaining toys that shouldn’t be thrown and put them away.

Always be able to help your child if they get overwhelmed with the cleaning process. Provide help and support to your child and show them that being clean and organized can be fun! Working with your child, and giving him or her a proper respect for their things and their home will ensure that in time they learn to clean up their own messes.