When my son threw out over half his stuff, without warning, I panicked, and tried to make him keep things! When he explained that having only what he loved and needed in his room reduced his ADHD symptoms he convinced me that helping him declutter and reorganize his room would make life better. I’ve observed how right he was for the last five years!
1. Which piece of your Pie has the most Chilli Powder?
You know yourself and your ADHD symptoms better than anyone else in the world! Start decluttering in a way that gives you the highest chance of finishing!
As they say in Sweden, ‘You can’t pull everyone through the same comb.’ In other words, Everyone is different. Just because you have ADHD like thousands of others doesn’t mean that your ADHD is the same as theirs.
ADHD is like a pie cut into many pieces. Each piece represents a part of your life, School, family life, work, recreation, hobbies, household chores, ways we relax, social life, social media presence, Gamer, and the deep inner part of you that asks hard questions to name a few. No one’s pie is exactly the same. ADHD is like a spice, and each piece seasoned differently.
Annie Eklöv
It’s like the pie my friend received from her son. He experimented added chili powder to cherry pie filling!
One particular slice seemed to have as much chili as the rest of the pieces put together! Of course, that was the piece my friend ate!
That’s how it can be with ADHD some of us have lots of ADHD problems in the slice of life called school. Others have a terrible time in social situations. Still, others struggle to keep their house/room clean or talk too much in social situations.
Most of us don’t have enormous ADHD problems in all of our pieces of pie. Every once in a while I’ll meet someone who does have lots of ADHD spice in most of his slices of pie, and unfortunately, those are the people who struggle most with ADHD. We who get chili dumped mostly in one slice of pie are the lucky ones.
Decluttering for those with ADHD is a balance of pushing yourself to get it done and respecting how you function.
2. Before you help your child declutter, get your ducks in a row! (Especially parents of kids with ADHD kids!)
I don’t mean you must declutter your entire home before tackling your child’s bedroom, but I do hope you realize it’s hard to help a child declutter. You must come to terms with your own mindsets and values in order to help your child.
Get over your own fears and anxieties!
The amount of stuff my son wanted to throw out made me anxious! I didn’t have time to prepare beforehand. My son, Lage, decided on the spur of the moment that he couldn’t handle his cluttered room anymore and threw over half his stuff out into the hall!
I tried to convince him to keep things from his discard pile, which sparked his anger. He knew he’d feel better in his room if he could get rid of stuff he didn’t use, but he couldn’t immediately put his need into words.
If I’d had time to mentally prepare myself for decluttering I wouldn’t have asked him to keep a single thing!
It’s hard to see things you bought for your child casually cast aside, but deep down we know if our kids don’t really like an item/garment and they don’t use it then it’s getting in the way.
Realize your child may want to discard expensive items!
You will have to come to terms with the fact that you or others family members bought your child too many clothes, toys, electronics, and misc. things.
You will feel a sense of remote for wasting money on things your kids don’t like! Don’t let it keep you from decluttering!
This is normal and your money wasn’t completely wasted hopefully it taught you what not to spend money on in the future!
Have an attitude of generosity.
Focus on how much joy your used items will give someone else.
If it’s Christmas time try gifting barely used toys to toy drives and send clothes to shelters where they’re often short on warm garments. If it’s a different season a second-hand store is a great choice for donations.
Trust your child’s intuition!
I expand more on this point in my blog post ”Decluttering kid’s toys and other monsters in their rooms”. It was a point I chose to expand on more than others, so to keep this blog post relatively short click on the link above and scroll down to the appropriate heading.
Give your child and yourself permission to donate items they no longer need.
Sometimes it’s really hard to let go of items. I know I’ve been there! It wasn’t till my son begged me to let him declutter that I realized how important it is to give others permission to declutter their possessions.
It may seem strange that we seek permission from others to declutter our own things, but permission (or peace of mind) is something sought after by many on the path of decluttering.
I believe kids need permission from parents because many of ‘Their’ things are not actually theirs, yet adults seek permission to relieve guilty feelings. Feelings that inevitably come from facing their clutter which represents poor choices they’ve made.
It may seem illogical to turn to others for permission to donate your stuff, but hearing the words, ”You’re free to declutter anything you want,” from another human being is empowering and freeing and it may be the push you or your child needs to get the job done!
Children with ADHD must be allowed to do as much decluttering as they are able and then turn the job over to mom or dad. (That means mom and dad get full control of the rest of the decluttering and room organization process.)
Kids with ADHD have limited attention. My son was into decluttering and hyperfocused until he got all the things he didn’t want out of his room, then he completely deflated!
At that point, he didn’t know how to discard his overwhelming pile in the hall. It was huge and a mix of trash, hand-me-downs, old toys, broken items, old electronics, new clothes, and family heirlooms. It was too hard for him to sort through it because he spontaneously decluttered without any systems for sorting items.
(Read about my system for decluttering kids’ rooms and keeping them clean below!)
Even his room was a mess, items he’d pulled out of bins and drawers were trampled underfoot, hanging on his chair, and dangling from the light fixture!
It was necessary to get things out to declutter, but when the momentum wore off he didn’t know where to begin restoring order.
At that point, he asked me to take over and gave me full control of discarding the discard pile and reorganizing his room.
Kids with ADHD (All types) can get overwhelmed easily. It’s our job as parents to step in and help when our kids feel paralyzed by the enormity of a job. This may mean taking over completely or breaking a big job into many small tasks to reduce overwhelm.
When kids discard precious family heirlooms it’s ok to discretely save them. Your child may want them when they are older.
3. Decluttering helps kids develop good decision-making skills. (When kids make decluttering decisions the decisions get quicker and easier each time.)
Most kids don’t make many daily decisions. It is true that young children should not be given too many choices, but not allowing kids to make any daily decisions tells children they are incapable of making choices.
I’ve noticed, with my kids and even in myself growing up, that when we were given a decision to make we often felt anxiety. First, we were anxious about what to choose, and once we chose we had anxiety over if we made the right decision!
What flavor of gum to choose should not cause anxiety, that’s not healthy!
Kids who are anxious over decisions, often second-guess their choices or take forever to make up their minds. They need to exercise their decision-making skills, so decisions come easier and without anxiety.
Tip: Kids need to practice making decisions when they are calm, rested, and in a good mood. They won’t learn anything if they are too tired, stressed out, or in fight-and-flight mode.
Click on the link below to read more about Kids with ADHD, decluttering, and decision-making!
4. Kids with ADHD Need a System for Filing their Best Work. Learn how to declutter and Consolidate Papers, Pictures, and Art Projects.
Helping your child be free of paper clutter is a two-step process.
Step 1, Take care of the existing pile-up of papers and art projects.
Are you or your child having a hard time tossing schoolwork and art projects? Create a binder with your child’s papers or take pictures of the best ones and make a photo book. A phone app makes it easy; no need to cut paste or download photos to a computer. Chatbooks, Photobox, and Fujifilm are all great apps/sights.
Scrapbooks are space savers, they give odds and ends a home, and your child can easily access pictures and memorabilia.
This will require helping your child find all their papers and art projects and scanning them into your computer or phone if you chose to do it the digital way. You can also buy a binder (Folder/trapper keeper) I like to use page protesters and a three-ring binder to store my kid’s best work.
The key word is ‘Best work’ You must cull the collection and declutter much of what you find laying around your child’s room.
Don’t talk about decluttering papers with your child initially. Ask them which papers and projects are their favorites and make sure to include those. Whether you inform your child that you’re decluttering their papers as you make a scrapbook or if you focus on solely talking about a scrapbook is a decision only you can make. You know your child best.
Do a good job on this initial book, so your child feels inspired to help declutter paper and art projects as they bring them home from school and help you make the next book.
I promise making a scrapbook is simpler than it sounds, and kids enjoy a book much more than loose paper.
Step 2, The Binder Method
Get Permanently Organized with Binders!
This is my favorite way to organize all my kids’ papers, pictures, projects, assignments, and all odds and ends made of paper.
A fast, budget-friendly version of a printed scrapbook is a binder with page protectors. It’s not only cheaper but also more convenient when filing loose papers.
Write your child’s name and date on a binder and put schoolwork, pictures, cards, and art projects in plastic page protectors.
The trick is to immediately file papers when your child brings them home from school.
Art and school assignments will automatically be in chronological order if you consistently put items in the binder as they cross your threshold.
Annie Eklöv
Cutting, pasting, and being creative is not required. Scissors are only necessary if something doesn’t fit.
Once you’ve established a binder with your child’s name on it put the first stack of papers from school in the binder yourself. Weed out as much as possible!!!
Only keep the best assignments, amazing art projects, and the most creative essays!
You must declutter the papers that come through your door! If you don’t you’ll fill up binders so fast that you won’t have shelf space for them all!
Annie Eklöv
When my kids come home from school with assignments and art, usually they have around 10 papers. I go through them at once. If it’s mostly art I’ll keep more papers if it’s mostly assignments I may only keep one.
When my daughter brought home a stack of papers 3 inches high at the end of school I went through it systematically and kept only the best which was about 15 papers. The rest I tossed.
My kids know I only keep the best. They’ve seen me weed out the duplicates, poor assignments, and unfinished art. They now pick out the best themselves and put it in their books.
Teaching your child what to keep is simple.
Tell them to only keep stuff they’ll be proud of in 10 years.
Annie Eköv
Filing Paper Clutter Already in Your Child’s Room
You’ll need a separate binder to catch the papers and pictures you find in your child’s room. Do your best to guess the date of the items.
I bought a binder for my daughter when we cleaned out her room and ended up writing a three-year span on the spine. These dates were as precise as possible in retrospect. The items in that book are not in chronological order, and I didn’t try to put them in order.
Don’t expect this ‘Catch-call’ binder to be perfect. Its purpose is to be practical, and pretty enough to inspire your kids to help you make the next one.
Keep my easy formula in mind when you fill your binder.
1/4 school assignments.
1/4 cards, and other paraphernalia.
1/2 arts and crafts projects
The book will the book be pretty without you breaking a sweat!
Most grown children toss school assignments when they receive chaotic boxes full of loose papers. If you take the time to put the best pieces in a book, they just might keep it.
I made this video to explain how we make our binders. Enjoy!
5. It may be necessary to discuss why it’s important to declutter in order to get your kids on board.
Kids with ADHD should Declutter their Bedrooms to have a place to Concentrate Optimally! (Minimalism Promotes Concentration)
Researchers found that living in disorganization makes it harder for your brain to focus, negatively affecting working memory1.
Our brains are made to focus on a few things and keep track of these things for short periods. That is what we mean when we refer to working memory.
If your surroundings are too chaotic, your working memory is distracted1, and your Visual cortex (which has limited processing capacity for competing stimuli in the environment2) may not function optimally.
Constantly living in a chaotic space is often extra hard for people with ADHD1 (predominantly hyper, predominantly inattentive, and combined type).
Those with ADHD already have a poor working memory, and the last thing they need are distractions to slow it down further!
My daughter’s room before we decluttered and redecorated!
Below are my favorite decluttering tips!
Tips for Decluttering Kids’ Bedrooms
Have a talk with your children about how decreasing clutter in their environment will help them concentrate better! Explain that you will help them declutter their rooms.
Help your children decide what stays in their bedrooms. Put your favorite items in boxes to keep them safe while you organize the discard pile or label everything with post-it notes, or come up with another creative way of sorting.
Don’t second guess your kids’ decluttering decisions. Just because you think they should wear the Tommy Hilfiger sweatshirt you bought them doesn’t mean your child wants to keep it or wear it! I learned this the hard way!
Send your kids to Grandma’s or out with your spouse while you restore order.
If your kids are still at home, put on a film or occupy them in an area of the house separate from where you’re working. They shouldn’t see what you haul out.
Don’t let your child see what leaves their room. Imagining the excess stuff gone and actually seeing it leave are two different things.
The volume of toys/stuff leaving the bedroom always looks bigger when it’s haphazardly thrown in boxes or bags. Seeing it can be stressful for children, and looking at discarded items a second time gives children an opportunity to second-guess their decluttering decisions.
Sort the leftover items into categories;
Hand-me-downs
Sell
Trash
Second-hand store
Sentimental items.
When you’ve got these sorted, you’ll probably have several random things left.
Organize these items into categories.
Misplaced items
Recycling
Be sure to take the batteries out before tossing toys with moving parts.
Lock all your kids’ donation items in your room or the garage when you can’t finish the same day.
Restore order to your child’s bedroom once you’ve placed the discard pile out of sight and out of mind.
Dispose of the donation pile as soon as possible these items tend to creep back into your home.
These are some of the steps we followed when decluttering our kids’ rooms. I hope they help you too!
I made this video about the wonderful changes we saw in our kids once we decluttered their rooms and redecorated them in basically a monochrome decorating scheme.
In the YouTube Video, I talk about the benefits of specific changes. Many changes we made are easy to do and don’t require painting! I hope this video gives my post more clarity.
6. Motivate kids to declutter by helping them sell their excess!
Essential Life Lessons are taught by helping Kids Declutter and Sell Toys/Clothes.
Kids are more likely to let go of excess toys/things if parents help them sell the extra items and put the money towards something meaningful for the child.
If your kids want to sell toys as part of their decluttering process, use this opportunity to teach them that selling unwanted items is a lot of work. This teaches children to think twice before impulse buying.
How to Help Little Children Sell their Decluttered Toys
Little children can sell toys in your yard. It’s better to sell many things cheaply. Neighborhood children will spend money on toys if you price them right. Your kids will likely earn enough to buy one smaller toy or fatten their piggy bank.
After your garage sale, talk with your kids about how many toys your children needed to sell to earn money to buy one new toy. It can be eye-opening to realize how low the re-sell value of most items actually is.
Teach Older Kids to Sell Decluttered Items
Show older kids how to sell things on eBay, Cage’s list, or Facebook marketplace. It’s pretty self-explanatory, but if your child is underage they may need to use your account.
At our house, when I felt the need to sell items (we needed the money). My kids got the money from items they receive as gifts, and I kept the money from all other items I bought for my kids. Children understand if you don’t split the profit on everything you paid for.
On the other hand, if you don’t need the money yourself, pick the best 10-20 items you paid for and let your kids sell these as well.
It all has to do with motivation.
Ask your child if they have a specific item or experience they want to earn money for. Knowing where the money is going often sparks initiative and motivation to do most of the selling themselves.
Tips for Helping Older Kids Sell Used Items.
Be clear about what is ok to sell and what is not. (My brother sold a lot of childhood items during his high school years which made my mom sad when she found out.)
Guidance on price setting is usually needed. Kids are not immune to the endowment effect. Help your kids set a reasonable price. Googling or searching eBay for similar items is a good way to find a starting price.
Have kids lower the price every week till items sell, and ask your teens if they’re surprised at which price point items finally sold.
The Endowment Effect basically states that we overvalue items we own. That means that when we want to sell our belongings we often grossly overprice them.
How to Help Kids Sell their Decluttered Items when They’re NOT Motivated
My son asked me to sell his big-ticket items on eBay. He didn’t want to help.
I made this video to show my process for selling my decluttered items on eBay.
It takes time to sell things, so I agreed to sell them if we split the profits. He got 50%, I got 40%, and the online auction site got 10%.
Let a consignment shop sell your child’s things.
Leave the items at a company that specializes in selling things for others on eBay. You’ll probably get 30% of the profits, but 30% is better than nothing.
7. Types of toys that are easy to declutter if you’re having trouble getting started.
(Tip: Begin with something easy. It helps your child build momentum!)
As the mother of three kids two of which have ADHD, I know that having fewer toys is especially beneficial for kids who need a diagnosis.
Your average child may find putting toys away difficult. For Kids with ADHD, the difficulties are multiplied!
ADHD makes it hard for kids to even know where to start picking up, and sorting a mishmash of toys into a plethora of containers is completely overwhelming for them!
On top of the confusion and overwhelm that surrounds picking up a mess, kids with ADHD often can’t concentrate long enough to put stuff back!
My instincts told me, ”More toys should entertain my kids for longer periods of time,” but that idea didn’t work in our home!
My kids seemed to. . .
Get out toys
Play with them for a few seconds
Leave them on the floor
Get out more toys!
Tell me their board
Create a huge toys mess
Then become completely confused about how to pick it up
Because my kids often got out insane amounts of toys when I needed them to entertain themselves and they could not pick up their toys by themselves (ADHD), I started decluttering toysto reduce what they could throw on the floorbecause I ended up picking up!
I didn’t want to declutter toys, but I was forced to because I couldn’t keep up with the mess!
I wish someone had told me that there were more benefits to having fewer toys than just a clean house before I started decluttering. It may have made the process go faster.
While helping my daughter pick up her room, I realized she had the same feelings about picking up a huge pile of random toys as I did about cleaning the family junk drawer!
Our Junk drawer had an insane amount of small items that were all mixed up. None of them belonged in the same place. When the junk drawer literally overflowed, and I couldn’t avoid sorting the contents any longer, I would pull it out, set it on the table, and stare at the contents because I had no idea where to start!
We reduced the toys by at least half! Then we sorted them into categories to create a toy library. I refused to let my kids have more than one type of toy category out at a time. This made pick-up easy!
All the toys went in the same bin! Some of the toys we rotated in our toy Library were Legos, Barbies, Cars from the car movie plus other car movie stuff, Pet Shops, a Wooden toy train set, and crafts.
For more information about how to make a toy library with rotating toys check out the articles below.
Kids Toys You and your Kids will be Glad You Got Rid Of!
Toys with missing pieces
McDonald’s Toys
Toys from very cheap chain stores. These toys can contain lead (Often in the paint) which aggravates ADHD and causes Pica. Some researchers think lead can cause ADHD. Laws to protect kids from lead often don’t include imported goods. Most really cheap items come from China or India. Often these toys break quickly, so if your kids have trouble parting with them as soon as they’re damaged get them out of your home and don’t buy any more super cheap toys. They do more harm than good!
Books Your kids never chose to read.
Books that Mom or Dad hates reading.
Books that are torn or broken.
Board games your kids never play.
Board games you don’t have all the pieces to.
Board games with broken pieces. I recently realized our mouse trap game has broken parts and no longer works. Many times kids beak games and just put them back on the shelf. Open all the boxes and check they’re complete.
Board games that are not appropriate for your kids. It could be that your kids outgrew them, or if your kids have ADHD or dyslexia. Some games require lots of reading or more attention than your children have.
Toys your kids never chose to play with.
Toys your child grew out of.
Toys that are broken.
Toys your kids don’t like, but they are nostalgic for you or your partner. You don’t need to throw these toys out if they are from your childhood, but you should take responsibility for them and claim them as yours if your kids don’t want them. I bought some toys that reminded me of my childhood toys when my kids were little. I wanted my kids to play with these types of toys, but I finally had to admit that times have changed! My kids were not interested in copies of toys from the 80s!
Toys you have extra of in the same category. I realized recently that I could not shut the lid on our Duplo box, so I sold some Duplos my kids didn’t play with. These were Duplos at the very bottom of the box. My kids didn’t notice and I can now shut my Duplo box!
Toys that attract more toys. Toys like toy kitchens seem to accumulate an endless supply of food and kitchen gadgets! I found that my kids enjoyed the toy kitchen more outside! It was more fun to have a few items of plastic food (I kept ten) when my kids had access to water, sand, grass, and mud to make their own concoctions! I got rid of lots of plastic toy food and even doubles of teapots and pans. My kids never noticed. It could be they didn’t notice because the toy kitchen changed locations and they had many new things to use in its new outside kitchen.
Toys your kids don’t like to pick up and that often get stepped on. Save your feet!
I hope this helps you get started on decluttering. Most of us living in western countries have accumulated more things than we can manage.
Getting rid of things that steal your time (You have to clean them, pick them up, fold them, etc.) will enable you to spend more time with family and friends, start a hobby, play longer, work out more, play video games, or whatever strikes your fancy.
Get inspiration from my posts on decluttering if you don’t know where to start!
I originally came up with this cleaning Method to help my daughter. She has ADHD inattentive (ADD), but my method worked for my son who has ADHD hyper as well.
I believe this cleaning method will work for children who have ADD or ADHD tendencies but do not qualify for a diagnosis.
If you’re not interested in how I came up with this method feel free to skip down to point number one.
Children with ADHD inattentive (ADD) often have a hard time getting started on projects and assignments. That, combined with a short attention span, can make everyday chores, like cleaning their room, frustrating for the parents and the child.
When my daughter was younger, she’d cry when I asked her to clean her room.
The thought of sorting through all the things in her room and trying to put everything away was so overwhelming it invoked tears.
Annie Eklöv
I often put her things in new places every time we cleaned together. I was trying to help, but this just confused her further.
When I stopped and actually listened to her frustrated comments about cleaning, an idea struck me.
I realized that she felt the same way about picking up her room as I felt about cleaning the family junk drawer!
When trying to sort out the junk drawer, I often dump the contents out on the floor.
I stand and stare at the pile of junk, trying to grasp what I should do with the wild array of items all mish-mashed together!
Do those batteries work, I wondered? Would anyone miss those erasers if I threw them out? What does that key open?
Finally, my eyes spotted something that I knew what to do with. Hair ties and bobby pins go in the bathroom!
I trotted downstairs to put them away. My task of sorting through the junk seemed to take forever!
I began comparing her room to my junk drawer.
Kids’ rooms are usually full of many different kinds of items.
In-play, children may get out clothes to dress up in, play food, toy dishes, dolls, and stuffed animals, and possibly pens and paper to make a sign for their cafe or write a menu.
They often smuggle water into bedrooms for mixing with clay or slime to make food for their customers.
All of these things get mixed during play, and when the play comes to an end, kids can leave a massive mess in their wake.
The messy room has so many different components it’s overwhelming for kids to pick it up by themselves.
By trial and error, a strategy evolved to help my daughter clean her room.
I wanted her to do as much as she could herselfwithout too much parental involvement.
Annie Eklöv
1. Show your child what you mean when you ask him to clean his room.
I suggest cleaning your child’s room when your kids are not home.
If your kids have too many art projects, clothes, and toys, remove a good-sized chunk of things. Put this in your storage room for 3 months.
If your children ask for a specific item that you removed, give it back to them. If not, get rid of it. (Avoid showing children everything you removed, and don’t give it all back. Require them to ask for specific items.)
I tried removing items without asking in my daughter’s room on my first declutter (I had to declutter again because I didn’t remove enough stuf). My daughter thanked me after I removed clutter from her room and reorganized!
I don’t suggest removing stuff from your child’s room without their permission unless it’s absolutely necessary. It’s better to teach kids to declutter themsleves.
Annie Eklöv
My daughter, Maria, has a hard time making decluttering decisions and felt a huge sense of relief in her cleaner, calmer environment.
My kids didn’t care about the absence of the stuff they didn’t remember owning.
If your child is angry that you removed things, assure him that you haven’t gotten thrown anything away. Whatever he wants back, he can have. Try convincing him to give the new clutter-free room a try before giving him anything back from the storage room.
The rest of your child’s things should be organized in his, and the room vacuumed and cleaned exactly how you want it to look when the child does it himself.
You can’t expect your children to clean their rooms to your standards if they have never been taught!
2. Ask your child to give some toys away to others.
If your child wants to donate something you’ve already removed from the room tell them you know where it is, and you will make sure to give it to charity.
Before Christmas is a great time to revisit this step. Many charities will accept gently used toys that they distribute to the needy.
Having less in your child’s room will = less mess to clean up.
Photo by Cottonbro
3. After the initial clean-up, pick a home for each of your child’s things.
Involve your child in deciding where things will be stored. Usually, kids have really good ideas and know best where and how they use their things.
Feel free to copy the chart I made.
4. Make a cleaning chart.
If they can read, write it out, but if not, use pictures to show the order of the cleaning process.
I find that I need to be available to my daughter while she is cleaning. I ask her to do one thing at a time and report back to me when she is done. Then I give her the next task.
Breaking the down chore of cleaning her room into many small tasks takes the stress out of a job. When I give her one small job at a time, she can clean up her entire room with only a little guidance from me.
She doesn’t cry and make a big fuss when I use this approach because she knows that she can do all the tasks on the list. I use the picture chart to remind her what to do next.
Photo by Neosiam from Pexels
The following things should be on your chart;
Take all the dirty laundry to the laundry room. I always have her start with this task. This quickly gets a big mess off the floor and out of the room.
Throw away all the trash you can see.
Put all books back on the shelf.
Throw away all the papers from old homework assignments.
Fold and put away all the clean clothes you find in the bedroom. My daughter often leaves clean clothes lying about in her room. She takes out two shirts in the morning, picks one, and doesn’t put the extra one back. After a week, there is usually a pile of clean clothes that need to be refolded.
Put all the loose legos in the lego box.
Lego sets that your child wants to keep together go on a shelf or in a cupboard. Often children get these down when they are playing and don’t put them back up again.
Put all the craft stuff away. I am seriously thinking about taking all the craft supplies out of my daughter’s room and making a craft station in a different part of the house.
Craft supplies are hard to sort, and usually, doing crafts produces huge amounts of trash. Whether you have craft supplies in the room or not, if your child likes to do crafts, he or she will have lots of finished or even half-finished craft projects in their room. These need to be gone through. A rule for how long craft projects are kept can be helpful. Giving your child a plastic box to keep their crafts in can be another way to solve this problem. When the box is full, they have to pick something to get rid of if they want to keep new projects.
Sort all other toys into their bins or boxes. In order to make this easier you should not have too many different toy categories in your child’s room.
Consider rotating toys between your children’s rooms and the storage room or making a playroom where you rotate toys. Having fewer categories to sort will make the cleaning process much smoother for your child. They won’t look at the toy piles on their floor and get overwhelmed if they only have a few categories to sort. For example, if all the toys are either Legos, Barbies, or pet shops, and they all have a permanent home, your child will know what category the toys belong to and where to put them without your help.
Check whatever is left on the floor. If your child finds things they do not know what to do with, have them bring these things to you. You can then instruct them where to put each item. If there are old batteries put them in the recycling. If there are toys from your little sister’s room put them back. If your child has ADD and really struggles with this task it may be necessary for you to do it for him. If I notice my daughter is tired or overwhelmed I let her leave these items with me and I sort them myself.
Most likely you will find more trash at this point. Throw it away.
You could have your child dust if you like. I usually help with cleaning once a month. I go in after my daughter has cleaned and I do most of the dusting, along with shaking out rugs and washing the windows and the mirror. You can have your child dust every week as part of their routine if this works for you.
Vacuum the floor and you’re done.
After helping my daughter clean her room this way for some weeks, she started to clean the living room every once in a while. She began to spontaneously pick up her room once or twice a week.
Giving her the tools to clean her room gave her the confidence to sort and put things away all by herself.
Her room is still extremely messy at times. Usually, this happens when we have been swamped, but she knows that when she gets started, it doesn’t take long before her room is clean again.
(Below, is my daughter’s bedroom when we decluttered and redecorated!)
Originally from the USA, I moved to Sweden in 2004 when I married a Swede. My husband and I have three kids two of which have ADHD and Dyslexia diagnoses.
Get your Help! My Room Exploded e-book while it's on preorder SALE on Amazon.com!
Buy Annie's E-book
My Author Journey
My dreams of becoming an author began at age seven when I first...
Is your teenager constantly battling the chaos of a cluttered room due to their ADHD? Imagine a world where their living space is transformed into a haven of organization and calm. In this article,...
