7 Steps to Teaching a Child to Clean Their Own Bedrooms

Often, it feels way easier to just clean up on your own rather than teach your kids to clean. But truth is, your kids benefit in so many ways from doing chores. Research shows kids who do chores–like cleaning up their own bedroom–have higher self esteem and are more successful as adults.

And let’s be honest: it’ll make your life a whole lot easier when your kid can clean their bedroom on their own.

Luckily, teaching a child to clean their bedroom doesn’t have to be complicated and time consuming.

By taking some simple steps now to teach your children to clean their own room, you can teach responsibility and save yourself loads of future time and energy. If a child can play with toys and make a mess, a child is capable of learning to clean up.

WHAT AGE SHOULD KIDS CLEAN THEIR BEDROOM?

So when should we actually start teaching our child to clean up their bedroom? The answer: as soon as they are able to put things away. Which is usually around 18 months.

Toddlers are naturally helpful and harnessing that natural desire will go a long way to making cleaning a habit. Start by directing them in simple tasks like putting a toy back where it goes, dirty clothes into the hamper, or books back on the shelf.

A general rule of thumb with chores is anything a child can do for themselves, they should. (To start your toddler with chores, check out the Free Printable Chores Chart for Toddlers & Preschoolers).

With that in mind, most children are capable and ready to start cleaning their own rooms. So let’s dive into the steps to make it happen.

STEPS TO TEACHING A CHILD TO CLEAN THEIR BEDROOM

1) Make it Easy with Clear Organization

The easiest way to teach a child to clean is to have clear expectations that the child knows how to meet. Meaning, for every item they need to put away, they need to know:

Where it goes
How to put it away

Which means that the room needs to be simply organized with clear places for every item. And those places needs to be easy for your kids to access. So low to the ground and clearly organized bins, drawers, and shelves. Otherwise, your expectations can confuse and frustrate your child.

This may mean reorganizing your child’s bedroom before you really start teaching them to clean.

Take a good long look at your child’s bedroom and ask yourself:

Does everything have a clear place?
Is it easily accessible for your child?
Is the organization uncomplicated?
How can I change the room to make it easier for my child to clean?

Then organize your room so that it’s easy for your child to know where everything goes and it’s easy to put everything away.

Taping images or labels on boxes, bins, and drawers can be extremely helpful in teaching kids where everything goes. I do this with my kid’s drawers and it has been a game-changer.

To say my girls love clothes is a major understatement. Without exaggeration, it’s perfectly normal for any one of my 3 older kids to change their clothes anywhere from 5-10 times a day on any given day.

(It makes me insane.)

Massive piles of clothes littered my house from the moment they started dressing themselves.

A few years ago, I looked at the daily deluge of clothes on their bedroom floor and I snapped. I wasn’t about to clean up another huge mess of clothes. Something needed to change NOW.

So I got some 3 x 5 notecards, drew pictures of the clothing items that go in each drawer, and taped them on each of my children’s drawers. I then gave them a brief tutorial explaining that they need to put the clothes in the corresponding drawers.

Then I hoped for the best. And it was nothing short of miraculous what happened.

With a little bit of direction my clothes-loving girls actually started to put everything away in the correct place.

Picture labels make all the difference.

If you don’t feel like drawing, I created a free printable of both boy and girl clothes drawer labels that you can download below.

Get Free Drawer Labels

2) Model & Praise

Children are very visual and physical learners. Not only do we need to tell them what to do, we need to show them and lovingly guide them. While you model the correct behavior, explain to your child what you are doing.

Then give them very specific instructions for what they need to do while:

making eye contact
using touch (like hand on shoulder)
pointing
noticing their efforts
praising them

This ensures that they fully understand your expectations and know when they are on target.

EXAMPLES:

“Can you put the OBJECT in this PLACE? (while pointing) You did it! That was so helpful!”
“This is where we put the OBJECTS (as you walk them over). Can you put that right in here? You did it! That was so helpful!”

Children need clear instructions. When I just spout off vague instructions to my kids, you can bet they just look at me like I just told them to build a spaceship. But when I point, walk them to where I want them to be, and give clear and simple instructions, they’re excited to help.

And kids crave attention and praise. Which is why they act out and hit their sibling or throw a fit. Because you snap to and give them 100% of your attention.

But if they get it when they clean and are helpful, they’re going to clean and be helpful.

3) Create a Routine

Children crave routines that they can expect and predict. If you’re constantly cleaning up after them, they’ve got that logged away and they know that is the routine: Mom’s the maid.

But if you want your child to start cleaning, it’s time to change the routine and create new patterns that you stick to. When your children have a clear cleaning routine, it will reduce the battles.

If you are consistent, not only will your child respond without having a meltdown, but eventually they’ll begin to clean before you ask them since they know it’s inevitable.

Determine the routine for cleaning the bedroom. I find that getting my girls to clean up their bedroom every evening before we get into the bedtime routine is perfect.

It’s a great way to end the day’s activities and transition into baths and bedtime.

And as an ingrained part of their routine, my girls know that they are expected to have their room clean in order to get a story and a song every night. And frankly, they’d sooner cut-off their own toe than miss the story and song.

As it’s become an established routine, they’ve become quick and efficient little cleaners. Hallelujah!

Want help creating a routine? Check out this Free Printable Bedroom Cleaning Checklist for Kids

4) Keep it Positive & Encouraging

The quickest way to sabotage a child’s attitude and the mood in your home is to be moody and negative. Be it potty training, school work, or what have you, when we start to get irritated and snarky with our kids, they will respond the same way.

Or with tears and tantrums.

Always give encouragement and praise for their efforts when teaching a child to clean. Praise and positivity go a really long way in helping to motivate a child. Helping them see how helpful they are and that what they do makes a difference will completely change their behavior.

A phrase we use (from parenting expert Dr. Becky Bailey) that has brought about miraculous attitude and behavior changes is:

“You (what your child did), so (the results). That was so helpful!”

EXAMPLES:

“You cleaned up all your clothes so you can find them. That was so helpful!”
“You put all your toys away so we won’t trip on them and your room can look nice. That was so helpful!”

I know it’s not always easy to stay positive when you are tired and overworked and the house is messy. But staying positive with kids yields magical results. You can read more about that in the article The Magical Phrase to End Whining and Get Your Kids to Help Out.

When I am super positive and complimentary, not only do my 4 and 5 year old ditch any bad attitudes, but they can clean a messy bedroom in no time at all.

5) Give Natural Consequences

If they don’t clean up, give them consequences. Natural consequences are best.

If my children don’t take care of their possessions, they don’t get access to them anymore.

As we were teaching our kid to pick up after themselves, we instituted “toy jail”. Meaning that items that don’t get picked up were placed in a big clear plastic container stored in a high (and unreachable) shelf in my closet. And my kids had to do various chores to earn their toys back.

Needless to say, my children learned very quickly to pick up after themselves!

Unless your children are actual angels, you’ll probably get pushback on the new expectations. If there are no consequences when they don’t clean, they’ll learn that they don’t need to do it.

6) Gradually Add Responsibilities

As your child becomes more and more capable, it can be easy to just enjoy the new help and leave it at that. But it’s important to keep your child growing and becoming more independent.

You can increase their responsibility by giving less specific directions and even adding tasks to their cleaning routines.

To begin, you may have to give lots of specific direction. But as they learn the process, you can move from “Put that toy right here” to “Put all the toys away” or “Clean this room.”

Once they get cleaning their room independently, find other cleaning task for them.

For us, this has meant gradually learning to clean most areas of the house, helping with the laundry and in the kitchen. The same principles above apply to any cleaning job!

7) Be Consistent!

I know it’s not easy. Mom life is super hard. We have moments where we can’t care about much more than making it to the end of the day, let alone having children who clean up after themselves. I’ve been there.

But if we are not consistent in our efforts and expectations, children will pick up that this is not important and not something they need to learn.

On the other hand, being consistent teaches our children that these expectations and responsibilities are here to stay and will be enforced.

Children’s brains are amazing at picking up patterns. If the pattern is that you won’t stay consistent, they will not comply. If the pattern is that they need to keep their room clean, they will!

And in the long run, you’ll have so much less to do. Because you’re basically training your kids to be helpful cleaning machines.

Stay strong, mama!

THE STRUGGLE IS WORTH IT

I’m not going to lie, teaching my kids to clean up after themselves has been a struggle at times. Sometimes they have fought me vigorously and tested whether I will be consistent. But the struggle to teach a child to clean is worth it. So worth it.

These days, my kids are now amazing at cleaning up their rooms. And the excitement and sense of pride they have when they show me their immaculate room absolutely makes my heart sing.

You’ve got this. Good luck!