A couple years ago, when I sat pregnant and plotting, I made a mental list of my parenting priorities. There were many.
Which in turn prompted me to consider the things that I was willing to let go of. You can’t do everything, or at least you can’t do it all well. So I felt like I needed to get real clear on what we would and wouldn’t spend time on.
Teaching Rémy to clean up, organize, and maintain was towards the top of the list. This may seem like a strange point of focus. Why would I possibly spend so much time and energy guiding and supporting something so mundane?
Because being able to clean boosts a child’s development, and makes way for a whole host of thinking patterns that I’m eager for Rémy to adopt.
First, there’s the all of the fine and gross motor skills that are required and practiced while cleaning. Watch a child trying to spray and wipe down a window – so much is required of their little body just to master that task alone.
Then there’s the communal aspect. Cleaning up alongside your family teaches lessons in how to collaborate with one another and care for your home. This is part of the social contract that holds a family together.
And if that isn’t enough, there’s the fact that keeping an organized, clean environment is good for the brain. It reduces anxiety, clears the way for creativity, and boosts the absorption of information. Basically, it sets the stage for learning.
Changing Perspectives
I can wax poetic about cleaning all day long, but the fact remains that most of us find cleaning boring, overwhelming, and something we need to get through as quickly as possible. I am not going to claim to love cleaning. I do not.
But everything is a matter of perspective and attitude. So I adjusted mine.
If I look at clean up time as an important learning activity, suddenly my mind shifts. I stop rushing through it to move onto something better. It is important work we are doing, and I don’t like to rush important work.
Once I changed my perspective, my attitude naturally followed. I now enjoy my clean up time with Rémy as much as I enjoy any of our other activities or projects. We connect and we have some fun.
I’m hoping that he’ll pick up on this and that cleaning doesn’t have to be the dreaded drudgery that I grew up thinking it was.
Strategies
For the remainder of this post, I’m going to focus on the cleaning task of “tidying up” – the fun time when parents ask kids to put away all their stuff. The task can easily become an emotional battleground, so it’s worth considerable energy to establish good routines and habits.
I am proud of the point we have gotten to. At 18 months, Rémy is pretty darn helpful, doing about 75% – 80% of the tidying up after playing. This didn’t just happen. It’s a process that requires patience, a sense of humor, and the mother of all parenting traits – consistency.
I’ve put together a list of 10 strategies that helped me as I guided him along. You can see the strategies and Rémy in action:
1. Start Early
When I say early, I mean as soon as you start having playtime. There’s no need to wait until your child is a toddler.
Back when Rémy was itty bitty, my main objective was to have him recognize the patterns around cleaning up, and that the process was just a part of our lives. I modeled cleaning up while he watched. He saw me in action again and again and again.
At around 6 months, when he was very stable sitting up and using his hands, we started to introduce the idea of putting things into baskets. This skill alone took a long time to develop.
Then, with each stage of his development, he built up the skills that were required of him to flow through an entire clean up.
2. Be Flexible With Support
On any given day, Rémy may be teething, dealing with a bad night of sleep, or just seem out of sorts. Such is the life of a toddler.
When these moments of struggle hit, I try to take a step back to empathize. It must be hard dealing with all these changes to your body, while you’re simultaneously trying to figure out how to navigate the world around you. Once I see that, then me offering more help during clean up isn’t frustrating, it’s an act of love.
If he is upset, I first try to connect. Then once he is feeling better, I offer up my help. Sometimes this means I am going to clean up everything while he follows me around. Ideally, I try my best to continue involving Rémy in some way.
I’ve found that at this age there is no need to go to battle or have a power struggle every time he starts to stumble within the process. Tomorrow is another day for improving. I’d rather keep the goodwill towards the clean up process than try to force something to happen.
3. Consistency
Are you the type of parent who expects a child to put away all toys or activities immediately upon finishing? Or are you okay with clean up once a day? Or maybe it’s three times. Whatever your mess-comfort level dictates, that’s what’s right for you.
Just be consistent with your expectations.
We do a clean up before any transition. He can, and often does, pull out all his activities and toys. He plays with them in all sorts of ways, and leaves a trail of abandoned toys. But before we move on to the next part of our day, everything must be put back in its home.
This doesn’t just go for toy clean up. We expect Rémy to help clean up after any activity we engage in, whether that’s eating or diaper change or playing in the dirt. Everyone in the family does their best to care for our home as we go.
4. Don’t Interrupt Focused Play
Play is sacred around here, so it is not to be interrupted. Of course, there are some times where you have to be somewhere on time. Or at least as on time as you can be with a toddler.
When clean up time is near, I typically give a heads up, letting him know we’ll be cleaning up soon. Then I wait for there to be a pause in what he is working on.
Interrupting to start cleaning up does three things I want to avoid:
1. It sends a clear message that his work doesn’t matter that much to me. It is not valued, or at least is not as valuable as whatever else I want him to do.
2. It breaks his concentration. In my book, this is a huge no, no. Developing focus is another one of those parenting priorities I mentioned above.
3. It sets me up for a battle. Rémy is far more likely to fight the process if I drag him out of an activity. It’s far more peaceful if I wait.
5. Don’t Ask If, Ask How and What
You want your child to want to clean up and be helpful, I get it. But the way there is not by asking if they want to clean up. They probably don’t. I mean, do you want to clean up?
There are things that Rémy can decide, and there are things that Mama decides. Cleaning up is a decision I own, which means I don’t need to ask a question. Especially if that question falsely implies that there is a choice in the matter.
And while we are owning this decision, lets feel confident in it. This means no apologies. There is no need to be sorry that your child has to clean up! All that does is send a loud message that you view clean up as a negative.
I own my decision, but I do look for other ways to give a bit of control to Rémy. I ask whether he would like to put the dolls away first or the blocks? Does he want to drag the basket or carry it? These types of questions are not only appropriate they help generate buy in.
6. No Bribes, No Punishment
As a general rule of thumb, I don’t bribe Rémy, and I don’t punish him. Those are two techniques of dealing with situations that I find to be ineffective and counterproductive down the line.
Offering some kind of reward for cleaning up relays the message that the activity is bad, and “getting through it” deserves some kind of treat. This is basically laying the foundation for a negative attitude towards cleaning that will stick.
I also think it’s unrealistic to expect moms and dads to come up with a reward every time their child is helpful. Being helpful is part of being a family. I don’t get a reward every time I contribute to the household, but I know that my actions are an expression of care and love.
On the flip side, doling out punishment for not cleaning is just as problematic. Doing so creates an environment where the child resents the activity and resents you. The whole time the child is receiving their punishment; their thoughts are typically focused on how unfair you and the situation are.
7. Everything Has a Home
I did not grow up in a house where this was the case. Except in the living room. That place was always neat, and we were not to touch anything in there.
But the spaces where my sister and I inhabited were not organized in such a way that it was clear where things should go. I suppose it was left up to us to do the organizing, and we hadn’t developed those skills yet.
When I set up all of our shared spaces, I tried my best to create a home for everything, and made sure the home was easily reachable and remained consistent. All of this preparation means that Rémy is able to remember where things go, and put them away.
8. Limit Toys and Activities
Here’s some cleaning logic for you:
More stuff = bigger messes
Bigger messes = harder cleanups
Therefore,
More stuff = harder cleanups
If you put out all the toys and activities for your child to play with, then chances are, you will have struggles. Instead, take a page out of the Montessori playbook and only offer up a limited number of items. Then rotate the items on a regular basis to keep things fresh and interesting.
Not only will this approach make clean up so much easier, but it will transform the quality of your child’s playtime. Less toys and activities result in more focused play. And rotating available activities mean that forgotten items become novel again.
9. Use a Clean Up Song
I used clean up songs quite a bit in the classroom. They were terrific at getting kids to start the clean up process without me having to ask again and again. They also were a way to sneak in a little extra music work. We would learn a song, and then for a few weeks we would all sing it as we cleaned.
I can’t wait to teach Rémy clean up songs. But for now, I’ve just been singing the Barney clean up song. It’s a great way to lighten the experience, and keep things moving along without having to get naggy.
10. Make it Fun
Let’s talk clean up games. I love the idea behind them – it’s all about making the task fun. And there’s so many different ways you could go. You could create special challenges – clean up only using your feet, or clean up like a dinosaur would. Or you could have them do a how to video explaining their process. Or you could roll dice to decide what to put away next.
If you get creative, there’s a ton of ways you can make cleaning fun. It really depends on what your child finds motivating. As Rémy gets older, I’ll see what he is into, and we can have all sorts of cleaning fun.
The one type of game I won’t be playing is anything that involves a timer or a race. Beat the clock sort of games are very popular, probably because most kids find them very motivating. Despite this, I’m not a fan.
As soon as kids are trying to race through the clean up process, they stop caring for their things, and start throwing things around. The whole idea I’m trying to impart to Rémy is that we need to care for our house and the things in it.
At this point, I’m just trying my best to connect and do things that make him smile. I put things on his head, use funny voices, and mess up on purpose so he can correct me. I give a lot of hugs, high fives, and kisses. And I do my best to show that there is nothing else I’d rather be doing… because cleaning up is something we do together.
Final Thoughts
Those are the ten strategies I’m using right now. They’ve helped me guide Rémy to a place where I am genuinely impressed with what he does. But I bet there’s a few additional strategies that would make life even easier. Please leave a comment and share what works for you.
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