YOUR CHILD'S ROOM

YOUR CHILDS ROOM:

Remind your kids that 5 or 10 minutes of effort a day willkeep their rooms in pretty good shape. If they save all their straightening up for saturday, it will take an hour or two and will surely be met with groan and complaints.

Modify children's rooms so that they can help maintain them. Supply child-sized features, such as a low dresser with nonstick drawers and a closet with hangers and hooks at a child's height.

Once you've helped put a child's room together, the room and the objects in it BELONG TO THE CHILD. If you take over too much responsiblility for keeping it neat, the child will feel that the room belongs to you and not to him/her, and she/he might not take care of it.

A child as young as 6 years old can at least spread up a bed--it doesn't have to be perfect! Using comforters or quilts on beds will make the job easier.

Ideally, older children's rooms (especially those belonging to adolescents) should be off-limits to any adult interference. Unless the room has reached a level of messiness that threatens to infect the rest of the house, the best policy is hands off.