The Importance of a Tidy Room
Decluttering your child’s room is important, and not just for aesthetic reasons. More than just creating a tidy appearance, decluttering a child’s room helps promote safety, foster cognitive development and emotional well-being, and generally improve the child’s quality of life. It’s not an easy task, especially since both you and your child may be emotionally tied to many of the belongings, but we have some helpful tips for decluttering that will help turn your child’s room into a haven.
Start by Sorting
Take inventory, sorting everything in the room into categories like clothing, books, toys, school supplies, and so on. Once you see what your child owns, you can determine what needs to be donated, what needs to be tossed, and what needs to be organized and stored. Labeling boxes with these different categories is a great early step, and will help you keep track of where things need to go. Involve your children in this process, giving a little bit of grace about things to which they’re attached. It’s ok to store things to look at later, keeping them until your child’s attachment to them lessens.
Give Everything A Place
One of the biggest causes of clutter is a lack of assigned places for things to go. If something doesn’t have a place, it will end up on a flat surface, like the floor, the bed, or the dresser. When you assign everything a place, it’s easier to hold your child accountable for keeping everything where it belongs. Labeling bins and shelves can facilitate a tidier room, because it will be easier for your child to understand where everything goes. To help keep things clutter free, consider rotating toys, keeping some tucked away in storage and putting them back into rotation only when you pull other toys out.
Be Smart About Storage
Think carefully about functional storage. There are plenty of ingenious storage solutions, like beds with drawers or headboard shelves, and loft beds with storage and floor space underneath them. Other great storage ideas for kids’ rooms include:
- Bins: These can be open bins, closed bins with lids, buckets or baskets, neutral or colorful. They work far better than having one large toy box, because smaller containers make it easier to find things and easier to keep things organized. You can label bins, boxes, and baskets, with words for older kids or pictures for little ones.
- Cabinets and shelves: A combination of the cabinets and shelves often works best. Cabinets can prevent the room from looking cluttered, but shelves make it easier to see what’s there, and easier for children to get things out and put them away by themselves.
- Vertical space: Wall-mounted shelves and hooks are great in a child’s room, because ideally, you want to leave as much floor space as possible for playing. You can also use walls to promote creativity, installing a whiteboard, mounting an easel, or using chalkboard paint to create a surface for drawing.
- Self-contained toys: The beauty of many toys, like toy kitchens and model car playsets, is that when it’s time to put the toys away, the toy itself serves as a container for the smaller pieces. Don’t have room for a playhouse or kitchen? Look for versions of these toys that are designed to be easily taken down and folded away for storage.
Create a Declutter Routine
The only way to sustain a clean room is to revisit it frequently. Set a schedule in which your children spend 10 to 15 minutes each day tidying their rooms, and you work with them periodically to declutter, teaching them about sorting and categorizing items. Encourage them to regularly donate items, whether to a younger relative or a charitable organization. When the seasons change and you declutter their wardrobes, that is a good time to declutter their toys, as well.
Caring for Children with BrightStar
At BrightStar Care of Tampa, we are well known for our in-home services for seniors, but we also offer high-quality home care for children. We provide a wide range of services to children with disabilities and children who are ill, as well as pediatric nursing and care for children whose parents have disabilities. With our variety of high-quality, compassionate care and our unparalleled support for our local healthcare system, we give more, not just to the people we serve but also to our community. Our goal is to make our clients’ lives the best they can possibly be while making the Tampa community stronger than ever. We are honored to have won some of the most prestigious awards in the industry, both locally and nationally, and we strive to provide the kind of high-quality care and support that truly make a difference in people’s lives. From our nurses and caregivers to our office team and staff, everyone on the BrightStar Care of Tampa team cares deeply about providing the care and support our customers deserve. For more information about our care and services, call 813.692.1021 or contact us through our website.