Organizing Your Child’s Bedroom

Keeping your child’s room clutter-free while organizing it can be quite a chore. The moment things are put away, in no time they are out again. With a little clutter control and some new habits taught to your children, you can make messy bedrooms a thing of the past.

To start, a good kid room storage system will also encourage the positive habit in your child of putting things back where he found them. This can be considered the Montessori method, pioneered by Madame Montessori, who taught children about storing related items together in a designated spot.

The thinking here is once you show your child where a particular toy goes then he may be persuaded to return it back there the next time he finishes playing with the toy. It’s all about your child knowing where his things belong. This technique also teaches your child to become the keeper of his own belongings.

When it comes to storage containers you can usually come up with some great ideas by looking at office and kitchen organizers. For instance what about shallow wicker trays similar to the plastic in and out letter trays you find in many offices? Such trays are ideal for everything from homework and artwork to hair accessories and game boy games. In a baby room, trays are ideal for storing folded undershirts and socks.

The right storage containers for organizing kid rooms are often a question of money and taste. A customized closet system may work best for one family’s kid room stuff while another family would be happy with a storage system made up of recycled boxes from the grocery store. Whatever your budget there is an organizing solution for you.

Once you have figured out where you will put everything, now you must weed out items in the bedroom not needed. Start with your children’s clothes. Box up and give away items that don’t fit anymore. With children growing fast, this needs to be done quite often. Simplify the clothing that remains. Does your child really wear all 25 T-shirts or does she just favor a few?

One of the most genuine excuses children give for not hanging up their clothes is that they can’t reach the rods. Once you have purged the excess clothing, you need to make sure your child can access what’s left. Lower the closet rod and install shelves at child-accessible heights. Also consider investing in child-sized hangers and open plastic baskets or bins for socks and underwear.

As for toys, a good kid room storage system will also encourage the positive habit in your child of putting things back where he found them.

Label everything. You don’t need to get fancy with professionally made labels. Simply print some out on your computer and tape on.

Now put the labels everywhere on the inside and outside of drawers, on shelf edges, on the outside of the plastic bins etc.

Organizing kid rooms can be fun as long as you have a good storage system in place.

Stephen Nickse is the founder of Closet Solutions, a leading provider of quality boston closets, strategically headquartered in the nation’s design capitol, Boston, Ma. For more information, please visit www.closet-solutions.com