Tips and Tricks for Keeping Your Apartment Clean Even with Kids

One of the things most parents complain about, whether they live in a huge house, or a small apartment, is the mess their kids make. Kids create messes like there is no tomorrow, and keeping your home clean becomes something of a “mission impossible” day after day. How do you keep your apartment (or house) clean even when there are kids around?

There are many ways to do this, however it will take some doing and a lot of patience before you can have a relatively mess-free home with kids in it. Here are some ideas that may just work:

Provide your kids with their own storage units – some kids use the excuse that they do not have any place to put specific things they own because a brother or a sister is using the space they feel should be theirs. You can get rid of this excuse by giving each child their own storage unit (or part of a storage facility) that is specifically for their use. You should label their personal spaces with their name so that there is no confusion as to who uses what space.

Use the reward/punishment system – children who do not pick up after themselves do not get treats while those who do so get treats. The reward and punishment system often works real well when it comes to teaching kids what is right and wrong, and teaching them to clean up after themselves can be done with the use of this strategy. You can even say that the kid who does not store away things properly will get their share of the treats given to the one who does clean up after themselves.

Make cleaning up and storing things into a game – aside from the reward and punishment system, you can also train your kids to get used to storing their things away after they use these by making it into a game. You have to start this while they are still toddlers, and to do so, you need to do this regularly, every day after play time.

Provide them with storage units that are easy for them to use, like plastic toy bins or storage cubbies. Give them a toy at a time to put in each shelf, or have them find a specific toy on the floor, and tell them to put this away. Try to make the activity fun so that they don’t think of it as tiring. When they get used to putting things away at an early age, you won’t need to constantly remind them to do so when they get older.

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