7 Simple Ways to Get Your 4-Year-Old to Clean Up

Nobody wants to live in a mess, but our kids are pretty good at making them! In fact, we can count on the need to continually clean-up. So wouldn’t it be great if the kids could help clean-up too? They can! When the kids get on board with cleaning up, it brings much more calm to the home. And preschoolers are at the perfect stage to learn how to clean. So if you’re wondering how to get a 4-year-old to clean up or if your 4-year-old refuses to clean up right now, you’re in the right place. Here are 7 simple ways to get your 4-year-old to clean up.

At What Age Should a Child Clean-up After Themselves?

Spend any time with an energetic preschooler, and you may well wonder if young kids are even capable of cleaning up. Or, you might have tried to encourage your child to clean-up without success and think they might not be old enough yet. Or maybe you’re just curious and asking at what age should a child clean-up after themselves?

Cleaning up is a skill that can be learned by anyone. It’s a continuum of ability (like most skills) from zero interest or ability to able to help out to able to do it independently. So, in my opinion a child “should” start cleaning up after themselves as soon as they’re able to toddle around, pull out toys, or otherwise make a mess.

From the youngest ages, we can start narrating our cleaning up to teach our kids what we’re doing and why. “We’re all done with these toys, so we’re going to put them away now.” We can invite little kids to join us. We can work together and gradually teach kids how to clean-up, until they’re ready to do it independently.

It’s never too late to start teaching cleaning skills! So if you’re wondering about your four-year-old, your child can absolutely learn to clean-up. If they haven’t learned the skills yet, it may take more practice to get to independence, but if they don’t have developmental difficulties, four-year-olds are at a good age to clean up after themselves.

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What about if a Child Refuses to Clean Up?

If you’ve tried to teach the skills, but your 4-year-old refuses to clean up, you’re not alone! You’re also not stuck. We all want to get our kids to clean up toys without a battle.

It can be really helpful to figure out why your child refuses to clean up. Often you can simply ask and your child will tell you. It’s important when you ask to truly be curious. Show that curiosity in your tone of voice. Kids are more likely to answer than if you come at it accusingly and they feel on the defensive.

If they don’t say (or don’t know), think through options on your own. Is it too hard or overwhelming? Were they not done playing yet? Would they just rather do something else? Do they feel out of control? (Remember we all want to have control in life.)

When you figure out why your 4-year-old refuses to clean up, you can start to address the underlying reasons. Whatever the reasons are, these simple ideas for how to get your 4-year-old to clean up will be helpful!

7 Simple Ways to Get Your 4-Year-Old to Clean Up

These ideas will help you get your child to clean up without a battle. The more our kids clean-up, the easier it gets for them. So these ideas are a great way to teach the skills and kick-start the habit. Eventually kids will be able to do the cleaning independently and you’ll be able to get your kids to clean up after themselves without a hassle.

1. Sing at Clean-Up Time

“Clean-up, clean-up everybody, everywhere!” “Just whistle while you work…” There’s a reason that these songs and others like them are famous…they work!

Singing lights up a part of our brains that feels like playing and fun. So when we connect clean-up with singing, we make the job feel more fun and not so tough. Additionally, starting a song is a really pleasant and easy way to signal clean-up time. When you repeatedly use the same one or two songs, cleaning up eventually becomes a habitual response to the song.

2. Make Cleaning Up a Game

As humans, we’re wired to avoid things that are painful and pursue things that are pleasurable. So if we can make cleaning just a bit more fun, we can work with our child’s nature to help them do important things. Four-year-olds also typically have really active imaginations that when headed in the right direction can make cleaning up (and focusing on the task) a breeze.

Here are a few ways to make cleaning a game:

• Toss toys into the toy bin like you’re shooting hoops
• Pretend to be servants in a mansion or little orphan Annie
• Race each other or the clock
• Act like something while you clean. For example, act like a dog that’s trying to get all the bones (toys) into the dog house (toy bin).
• Pretend the Toy Monster or quick sand is coming and all the toys that aren’t put away are going to get snatched up.

If you want more like this, the Happy Helper Cards include 20 ideas to make work a little more fun. You can also check out 20+ Ways to Help Kids Enjoy Work.

3. Clean-Up Together

Misery loves company! 🙂 No, not really, but we do all crave connection. So if clean-up is also a time to chat or simply be together, you’re 4-year-old will enjoy it much more. And of course, what we enjoy, we do!

Sometimes cleaning up a big mess feels really overwhelming to a young child (or even an adult for that matter!) But when we say, “Hey, let me help you with that” things suddenly feel doable.

Oftentimes, when we get started, our kids will join in without us even saying a word about it. Talk about no nagging!

4. Point Out the Positive

Positive reinforcement is a great way to help kids learn what to do. It teaches and motivates. So be really specific in pointing out the positive things you notice about how your 4-year-old cleans up after themselves, even if those things start out really small.

Here are a few positive things you might notice or say:

• Thank you for starting to clean up the first time after I asked.
• I noticed you put your puzzle away. That means the pieces won’t get lost.
• Thank you for having such a great attitude about helping around the house. I really appreciate when we work together as a team!
• Great job putting away your cars when you were done playing with them.
• I remember a couple days ago when we cleaned up so fast! That was amazing! It gave us so much more time to play after!

Remember…

5. Use a Clean Up Checklist

A checklist is a great way to help a child stay on task. Each time they mark something off, it feels like a little reward and motivates them to go on to the next item on the list. By breaking a large job into smaller tasks, a checklist also helps a big job feel less overwhelming and teaches steps to take. A checklist is also a great way to make sure the expectation of “clean” is the same for parents and kids.

You might want to make a simple checklist that shows what needs to be done to clean-up the playroom or the bedroom specifically, or what needs to be done before dinner each night. Use simple pictures that your 4-year-old understands and practice using the checklist together first.

Kids love using dry erase markers, so if you put your checklist inside a plastic page protector and attach a dry erase marker on a string, this can also bring a little element of fun to the job.

6. Use When-Then

When-Then is a powerful way for all of us to tackle jobs we’re not excited about doing, and it’s a really easy strategy to use. Simply think of something you ARE excited about doing and that’s the “then.” For example, when we finish cleaning up, then we can play hide-and-seek together.

This can be especially helpful when a 4-year-old refuses to clean-up. Rather than saying, “You have to clean-up now,” (and starting a tug-of-control) it’s a choice. Instead of battling, it’s “You don’t have to clean-up, but when you choose to then we’ll go to the park.”

When-Then can be built into your routine as something you do each time you’re done cleaning up, or you can use it sporadically as needed.

7. Simplify with Organization

One of the most common reasons a 4-year-old refuses to clean up or has a hard time with the job is that it’s hard to do! Maybe there are so many toys out that it’s overwhelming, or maybe it’s difficult to get all the toys put away just the way mom likes them.

One really powerful way to simplify is to organize things so that your child can’t get so many toys out at the same time. You might want to start a toy rotation, put some toys high on shelves that require an adult to help get down, or donate some things. Once we narrowed down the toys in my four-year-old’s bedroom to only one box, it was really easy for her to keep her room clean!

Another powerful way to simplify is to make your organization system one that makes sense to YOUR child. If they help organize the bedroom or playroom and make some of the decisions about where things go or how bins are labeled, they’ll be much more likely to keep it organized.

You can find many more ideas and specifics about organization here: How to Organize Kids’ Toys.

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Bonus Cleaning Tip: Modeling and Patience

I hope these seven simple ways to get your 4-year-old to clean up are helpful for you! As you use them, remember that the attitude and voice you use really do matter. When we come into clean-up time stressed and demanding, it’s likely our kids will react with high emotions. But when we choose to model a happy attitude for our kids, they’re more likely to follow.

Remain patient as you help your child learn the skills needed to clean-up. It takes focus and motivation and an understanding of the organization. While your child can definitely do it, it might take some practice to get to independence or consistent follow-through. These ideas can help you get that cleaning practice.

So, just to review, here are seven simple ways to get your 4-year-old to clean up:

1. Sing at clean-up time
2. Make cleaning a game
3. Clean-up together
4. Point out the positive
5. Use a clean up checklist
6. Use When-Then
7. Simplify with organization

Know that you’re not alone! Your efforts to teach your child to clean up are appreciated, even when your child doesn’t say so. 🙂 It’s an important skill that will serve them well throughout life. So keep up the great work, and may your child learn to do great work as well!

Which of these ideas seems most helpful for your child? What makes clean-up with your little one difficult? Share in the comments!

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