Cleaning up children's mess

She is definately old enough to learn to clean up her toys. The other posters had great ideas on how to get her to do it. I think at least initially while you are teaching her to clean up her toys, you should make a game of it. Make up some silly song about cleaning up and help her clean up her toys while singing the song. Tell her that you have to hurry up and finish picking them up before you finish singing the song. Make it be a fun thing to do, and she will learn to not view it as a chore.

It is definitely time to teach your daughter to start picking up after herself. Start by organizing so she knows that there is a proper place for everything. Also, have her put away what she was playing with before she gets a new toy out. This makes life a lot easier. If she refuses, start taking the toys and put them in a garbage bag. Tell her if she isn't going to take care of her toys, they will go away.

She could start helping as soon as she could walk, even if it was just one item. YOu might try putting up all but just a few things that she can play with and rotat them from a closet to the toy box so it is easier to get her started learning the difference between neat and messy. Good Luck

I trained my two year old son, even when he was a year younger, to always return the things to their proper places. Sometimes, he does, but at times he doesn't. But at least I know he's learning everytime he puts things back after he uses them.

Hello,kaevielf, I think it is important to teach your child about the importance of cleaning up the mess she created. You should do it when she is young so that she knows the importance self discipline,if not, she will have a habit of making a mess without tidying up and it will be hard to correct her bad habit when times go by. May be you can tell her you will only give toys or books to her only if she clean up the mess, if not, you may 'punish' her by not giving the toys to her so that she will remember to clean up every time she makes a mess.

teaching kids to clean up after themselves at a young age is a very good idea. the younger, the better. at one point, I had my kids cleaning up their toys and rooms and even their plates on the table and cleaing the table where they sat at dinner. I started working and their dad didn't make them clean up, we got in an argument that we (as parents) should celan up after them. his argument was that they were too young to be put to work. my argument was that if they're old enough to get out clothes or dishes, they were old enough to put them away and that 100 years ago, kids at the ages of 3 and 4 did alot of chores that were age appropriate and my kids did nothing. their dad was good at winning arguments and we ended up cleaning up after them. now they're 18,17 and 11 and I still clean up after them. they got spoiled and lazy. it only makes the parents more work and less quality time for you and the kids. me and their dad aren't together anymore and I have the younger two at home. I'm having to constantly tell them waht needs done and it's a daily battle cleaning up after them. teach your child to clean up after herself while she's young. make it like a game until it's a habit....setting a timer to pick up her toys, see who can pick them up the fastest.....I wish I'd have stayed with it, kids celaning up after them self and doing chores helps them with their self esteem.

Some of the problem with children putting their toys away Is that they have so many that they get overwhelmed when it comes time to put them away. Cut back on the number of toys to about 3 or 4 and let her know that when she learns to put those up then and only then can she have more out. In my opinion we tend to think that if we don't get our children all the latest toy we don't love them. The less toys they have the more they have to use their imagination and learn to improvise. When I was a child paper dolls were the big toys well we couldn't afford many of them so we cut them out of catalogues and made drew our own clothes. So try cutting back on the toys that she has available until she learns to put them up before getting something else out.