If this program (see previous posts) is new for you children, it is especially important that you start out slowly.  Do not overwhelm the poor kid with  demands.  Add responsibilities slowly, one at a time.

• You both will be a lot happier if you make the room as easy as possible to keep neat and orderly.  Get down on your knees–c’mon it won’ t hurt you–and look at the world from a child’s-eye view.  There’s a lot you can do to make cleanup and maintenance easier.  For starters, you can:
• Lower the clothes rack in the closets.
• Put in plenty of large hooks for play clothes, nightclothes, backpack, etc.
• Put dividers in drawers.
• Label drawers with words or pictures so things get put away where they belong.  This is  also great pre-reading instruction.
• Use several smaller toy containers rather than one large one.  With luck, only 20 rather than 50 toys will be dumped on the floor.
• To minimize bed making use a duvet and fitted bottom sheet.  But remember even with this simplification it’s difficult for little people to make a bed!
• Designate one drawer for junk.  Bet you have one!
• A clear plastic shoe bag hung over a door is a great place to store craft supplies, small toys, rolled up underwear, hair ribbons and other small things.
• Use sturdy clear plastic  storage containers in several sizes for toys, art supplies, etc.  Stackable, covered onces are best.  Label them (see #4).    What can be seen won’t be dumped–maybe.
• Put a bed on stilts or hang it from the ceiling to give him a generous play and storage space underneath.
• Consider rotating toys occasionally.  This cuts down on the number to be put away and gives your little ones “new” ones to play with when they’re brought out of hiding.

Some Words of Caution

What do you mean when you say, “Clean up your room”?  Now, that may sound like a dumb question, but your concept of a clean room is probably completely different than your child’s idea.  Too often we ask a child to do something–put the dirty dishes in the dishwasher, mow the lawn, dust the living room–and then get angry because the finished product doesn’t match our mental image of what it should look like.  Spend time demonstrating specifically what needs to be done and how to do it.  Babies do not come into this world with an instinctive knowledge of how to make a bed.  Teach necessary skills.  Assume nothing.

Just one final word”  Try to keep things in perspective.  Junior’s room may look like the aftermath of Hurricane Hilda, but how much is it really going to matter ten years from now?

And now, our Savvy Reader, what ideas do you have?  Won’t you share them with our readers?