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Sherri Curley, a home organizer, organizing motivator and speaker at The Practical Sort Eco-Organizing Solutions, recommends using the app Time Timer for a “clear visual of ticking time,” along with the app Habitica “for silly, gamifying task tackling.” Have your child factor clean up time into play dates It's benefited our family by avoiding tantrums and meltdowns about cleaning.” He's a super competitive kid, so it worked out nicely. “From there we started setting timers on other stuff like tidying up to get him to do it and have fun with it. “The idea to use a timer came to us when my son started racing his dad for every little thing, eating faster, coloring faster, getting dressed faster, etc.” says Gidican. Gidican has also found that setting a timer when her son cleans effectively taps into his competitive spirit. Use a timer to “race” your kids in clean ups
#Tidy up your room free
You might want to enhance this sense of community and purpose by letting your little ones know that if they help with cleaning, they’re creating “more time that parents are free to play with them,” Chansky adds. So give young kids some choice in the process. Part of what can make chores feel punishing is when you have no say in what they are or how you’ll deal with them.
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he sees someone leave dirty clothes on the floor or not clean up their dishes he will lecture them about how it's messy and needs to be tidy.” Give them options “That has seemed to do the trick in illustrating the ‘why’ behind our need to clean so he now understands and even goes further to explain it to others. “I explain to how germs travel, bugs lay webs/nests in messes, etc.” Gidican says, noting that she started doing this when he was around three years old.
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#Tidy up your room professional
“If you are negative and talk about what kids ‘have to do’ in a grumpy manner, kids will be grumpy right back.” Communicate why cleaning is important on a strictly hygienic levelīritta Gidican, a corporate communications professional in Seattle, found that helping her child connect the dots on how a messy home can lead to bigger problems got him interested in cleaning. The better message to send to kids is that cleaning “is not a punishment or a chore, it’s a ticket to other things being possible,” says Chansky. “Find ways that they can participate in doing chores - sorting socks, dusting low surfaces, pushing the buttons on the washing machine, picking up toys, etc.” Related “Take advantage of this and help them form good habits while they're still such enthusiastic workers,” Meehan says. What three year-old has the attention span and cognitive ability to really clean? Few, if any - but they can still help, and as Sonja Meehan, a professional organizer, owner of Simply Thriving Organization and the mother of two boys points out, toddlers usually really want to be involved in any activity, tidying up included. The aforementioned study notes that children who start to clean as young as age three were best positioned later in life. Toddlers may not be able to clean, but they can still help Here’s 12 ways to teach them why cleaning matters not just to get them to do it willingly on a regular basis (though, that’s a definite plus), but throughout their life. Just as young children need to learn the value of money they need to learn the value of cleaning. Tamar Chansky, psychologist and author of several books including “Freeing Your Child from Anxiety” points to a study published by the University of Minnesota, which found that giving children household chores at an early age “helps to build a lasting sense of mastery, responsibility and self-reliance.” The study, which followed over 80 children throughout their life, found that kids who started doing chores early (at about age 3 or 4) were more likely to have good relationships with friends and family, as well as academic success and eventually success in their careers when compared with those who didn’t have chores as young kids.
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