Organization for Kids Made Easy

Organization for kids isn’t always easy. Kids are far too interested in playing or doing what they want to do and moving on to the next thing to think about organizing. But teaching our children how to organize will make life easier now and in the future.

If you haven’t talked with your children about keeping their things organized or shown them how to yet, spring is the perfect time to start. It’s easy to tie organization for kids into spring cleaning if you do a big clean and declutter this time of year.

Even if you don’t spring clean, you can start with organizing. If you start in a communal room, like the living room or kitchen, your kids will see you organizing as you clean and won’t be so surprised when you approach them about their rooms.

When you do start in your kids’ rooms, work with them. Having you there helping will make the task less daunting. To ease into organizing, start with something manageable, like clothes.

As the season changes, clothes will need to be changed too. It’s a great time to see what’s been outgrown and what new clothes are needed, if any.

When you pull out your child’s clothes, see which winter clothes they might be able to wear again next year (if they don’t grow too much) and put them away. If winter clothes are close to outgrown and you don’t have any younger children that can wear them in future years, it’s the perfect time to donate them. Getting things out of the house (or your child’s room) will make organizing much easier.

Once the clothes are sorted and put away again—this is a perfect time to teach your child how to fold and organize their clothes in their dresser and/or closet if they don’t already know how—it’s time to move on to the next thing. Usually, in a child’s room, this means toys or books. Move onto whichever one your child has fewer of.

Regardless of which one you’re working on next, the process will be the same.

1. Sort any items your child has outgrown.
2. If you don’t have a younger child that would be interested in the items, then you have some more things to add to your donation pile.
3. Find a specific space for each item that gets put away in your child’s room. A space on the shelf or a particular (small) bin or box. Large boxes are convenient but they quickly become collectors of more stuff. Think about your own kitchen junk drawer.
4. If there are shelves for the books or toys, arrange them in an age-appropriate way that is easily accessible by your child. This may mean having fewer books or toys in the room. For books, arrange them with the cover facing the room instead of the spine. For toys, an easy way to organize them is to have labeled bins for each type of toy.
5. If your child has other things in their room, follow the same approach. See if they’ve outgrown anything. If not, then make sure there’s a specific space for each item. If there isn’t enough space for everything, try rotating things. You can rotate seasonally or at any interval you like, even weekly. Have a box where items wait for their turn in the room. When it’s time for the things in the box to come out, it’s time for other things to rotate in. This will help keep your child’s room more organized and allow them to see their things in a new light.

If your child (especially if they’re a teen) refuses to organize their room, read Get Your Teen to Clean without the Fight for some helpful strategies to make the process easier.

Depending on the state of your child’s room and the number of things in it, you may have to spend several days organizing, especially if you need to declutter first. That’s okay.

Once the room is organized, remind your child to put things away when they are done with them before moving on to the next thing. This will allow your child to keep their space organized.