...in a child’s world of play
“Sully, you’ve left your toys all over the place. We have guests coming, so you need to pick up and put away before they get here.”
If you have young children or work with them on a regular basis, you have noticed that their play tends to be disorderly and random. In the end, they can create messes that are daunting even to the most resourceful adult!
Helping a child find balance between order and chaos for his play life is critical to his future growth. Here are some suggestions that help guide children to be orderly from the inside out.
- Early on, help your child divide every day into a series of events, essentially alternating between major events and play times; major events like meal times, sleep times, activities outside the home, video and TV times, play dates, etc.
- Then, consistently guide your child to clean up his play area before moving into the next part of his day. For 25 years we have followed this pattern with great success in the children we’ve guided through their early years.
- From the beginning, limit the number of things your child has to play with between the day’s events, so that the amount of mess he can create is also limited.
- Make sure your child is doing the cleanup, not you. After all, for most children, toy cleanup is one of their first lessons in learning personal responsibility for their own actions. Too often, parents deprive them of that lesson by cleaning up for their kids. Bad mistake. Do you realize that you will pay for that misjudgment for many years to come?
How early do you start having them clean up after themselves? From the time your child begins to discard whatever he is using for amusement. As you transition to a different event, use your hands to help your child use his hands to clean up whatever mess he has created.
It’s a simple practice, but it has profound long-term benefits. Maybe because it is so simple, few people actually follow this plan. But those who make the time investment insist it is well worth the effort.
