How to Keep a Lid on Kid Clutter

Get a Handle on Kid Clutter

Salespeople follow the edict: "Always be closing". A parent's version: "Always be decluttering". Decluttering as you go doesn't take any extra time, and it saves you from that overwhelmed feeling of trying to clean up an entire day's worth of mess when all you want to do is go to bed.

"If I'm walking from the dining room into the living room and there's a stray pencil on the table, I grab it and pop it into the pencil cup as I pass by the desk in the library," says Francis. If she's heading upstairs, she glances around to see if there are any stray toys she can take with her to deposit in the kids' bedrooms.

Get a Handle on Kid Clutter

"Preschoolers, kindergarteners and first graders generate an overwhelming amount of artwork," says Janet Bernstein, a New Jersey-based personal organizer and owner of JB Organizers. To avoid a macaroni noodle mishmash, buy a memory box labeled with each child's name and pick one or a few favorite pieces to stash from each batch that comes home. "A lot of teachers will send home a year's worth of artwork on the last day of school," says Bernstein. "Sort it immediately."

Donna Smallin, author of A to Z Storage Solutions, suggests giving the best of the saved artwork the light of day once or twice a year by deciding with the artist which pieces are scanworthy, then scanning them and making them into memory books or a calendar. Both are a great grandparent gift. And after you've chosen your favorites, you might decide the rest are recyclable, after all.

Get a Handle on Kid Clutter

Francis has an inbox in the library where all "pending papers" -- field trip permission forms, unfinished homework -- are kept, and she culls it at least once a day. "When the kids bring home paper from school, I stand by the recycle bin as I sort through it," she says. "Same with mail. It's too easy to let that stuff overtake your house and ninety percent of it can be recycled right away."

Get a Handle on Kid Clutter

Kids want to keep everything. By the time their bedrooms start to resemble the homes on Hoarders: Buried Alive, it's more difficult to take action, because trying to sift through such a mass of stuff is overwhelming. Instead, establish a routine where three or four times per year are Sorting or Donation Days. "The best time of year to do this is just before Christmas or their birthday," says Smallin, "so they know they're about to get more stuff." It's a great way to get kids in the habit of asking, "Do I really need this?"

If they're really resistant, Smallin suggests asking, "What are your favorite things?" rather than "What can we get rid of?" Take the items that aren't their favorites and put them in a box. Let them know the things are still in the house and they can have them if they ask. If six months go by and they haven't asked, let them know the box is going to Goodwill.

Get a Handle on Kid Clutter

Kids are especially motivated by rewards, and the rewards of a successful garage sale can be the carrot on a stick that has them throwing their prized Webkinz into the giveaway pile. Discuss and agree as a family what you're going to do with the money – maybe you'll put it toward a trip to Disneyland or a long weekend away or a few dinners out.

Get a Handle on Kid Clutter

If there are rooms you don't want cluttered up, declare them "clutter-free zones," advises Smallin. Establish rules for the zones, such as no toys in this room, or you carry out what you carry in. If a child leaves something in a clutter-free zone, put it in the donation box and let them know they have to pay a price (i.e., do a chore) to retrieve it. Or, pull out the vacuum cleaner and let it be known that whatever the vacuum touches is going in the box. "If they don't want it enough to do the chore," says Smallin, "then it should really be in the giveaway box, anyway."

Get a Handle on Kid Clutter

Put everything at their level. Always be thinking at kid-height when you're hanging hooks for backpacks, hats, coats, pajamas and towels. Also consider your kids' point-of-view when it comes to putting stuff away -- they'll be more likely to do it if it's easy and fun. Buy a basket for them to throw their shoes into at days' end. "Who cares if they're lined up in pairs? Anytime kids can throw stuff is good," says Smallin. A low, ventilated, wire shelving unit in the closet will be easier for kids to maneuver than heavy dresser drawers. Use one for their underwear, socks and other items that don't necessarily need to be folded.

Get a Handle on Kid Clutter

There are many ways to make toy storage a cinch for kids -- and the more inclined they are to do it themselves, the less you will need to. Smallin advocates open bins without lids (which just become another obstacle on the road to tidiness) and transparent bins so it's easy to see what goes where.

Blogger Stephanie Brubaker of stephmodo.com organized her kids' playroom with grass baskets from IKEA marked with pictures of the type of toys that go in each bin. She discovered younger kids do much better at clean-up when they're given specific directions -- put this toy in this bin as opposed to a general announcement to "play the clean up game a la Barney." Brubaker took the pictures with her digital camera; printed them in wallet-size; ran them through a self-laminating machine at a nearby Fed Ex/Kinkos; cut them down to size; punched holes; and fastened each to a basket using a little piece of ribbon.

Get a Handle on Kid Clutter

Decide ahead of time how much room you have for toys, and only allow enough toys into the house that fit in that space. In other words, don't buy too many toys, then go looking for storage solutions to somehow create room for them. "You need to be in charge of the toys, not let the toys be in charge of you," says Francis, who adds that less is more. "If kids are overwhelmed with toys, they simply aren't able to take as good of care of them."

Sherri Kruger, co-creator of the blog Zen Family Habits, has a similar strategy. She only keeps four or five of her kids' favorite toys in circulation at a time. The rest are in deep storage in the basement or garage. Every few weeks, she swaps them out. "I've found that my boys actually play with their toys when they aren't overwhelmed by the choices and I am not forever tripping over or having to pick up cars, trucks, stuffed animals and books. It's a win-win."

Get a Handle on Kid Clutter

In Francis's house, each child has a basket, a bucket, or a tote just for them. At the end of the day they're in the routine of going through the house to collect anything that belongs to them and taking it to their bedrooms. They can put it away or leave it in the tote and put it on a shelf, but they can't spill the stuff on the floor or bed. Anything that's left out is fair game, says Francis, and may end up in the giveaway pile. "If they're part of the organizing," says Bernstein, "they'll be more invested in keeping it that way."

Get a Handle on Kid Clutter