Organizing Kids Rooms

1. Look at the room from your child's perspective. Get down to your child's level to assess furniture, belongings, space and storage. To organize a child's room, the solutions must be child-sized. Consider lower racks in closets, floor level storage and a basic checklist for daily maintenance.
2. Include your child in the process. Use this organizational process as a learning experience. If the child is included, he or she will be more likely to understand the reason for the organizational changes, and will be more likely to follow through with the plan.
3. Start by sorting the items in the room. Remove all items that are no longer used, including clothing, toys, books or any other items that it have made their way into the room. Store items that will be used in the future, such as out of season clothing or the overflow of toys, somewhere else so that you can free up space in this room.
4. Try to contain as many items as possible before you place them back into the room. Clear plastic containers are great for holding toys and you can use specialty storage for CDs, maga­zines etc. Using containers can also help you control how many toys are out at the same time. You can ask your child to return all the items to the first box before he can take out the second one.
5. Make it easier to put an item away than it is to take it out. If a child has to sort through a box to find his favorite truck, but he only needs to toss it back into a bin to put it away, you are more likely to have cooperation when it's time to clean up. Containers with tops get covered with piles of stuff which makes putting things away too frustrating ang time consuming.
6. Organize a child's room from bottom to top, placing the most often used items nearer to floor level.
7. Label as many items as you can. You can use pictures as labels for younger children and word labels for older children. If you want boxes returned to a certain shelf, label both the shelf and the box so that your child can match them up.
8. Build a time for room maintenance into your daily schedule. Find a time for clean-up that works with your family's schedule and stick with it.
9. Make a "treasure map" with your child to guide them where things go and use the map as part of the fun at clean up time.  Older children can use a photo of the room arranged as you like it to match up things that are out of place.  Make it a contest; who can match the picture first? Who can clean up before the timer goes off?  Now it is a game, add music and prizes and enjoy  time with your kids and get organized!