Mom’s Step-by-Step List Will Actually Get Your Kid to Clean Their Room

This mom’s hack makes keeping kids’ rooms clean ‘easier to execute and kind of fun’

It’s not just the tantrums and bedtime battles that parents often dread. There’s also the classic “clean your room” struggle that’s easier to just give up on sometimes—because if you simply close the door, you can pretend the mess isn’t there, right? But to maintain a safe living environment, you do need to get your kid to clean their room every now and then. That’s why we love this mom’s step-by-step list, which makes the experience kind of fun—for everyone involved.

TikTok parenting account @mightyandbrightco explains that the secret is in having a checklist where the big job—cleaning a room—is broken down into tons of small, easy-to-tackle tasks.

“The truth is—keeping a room clean, let alone a whole house, is a skill that involves lots of little tasks,” she explains in a now-viral video. “If you know how to tidy a room, you might take those little tasks for granted. But for kids, being faced with a messy room is totally overwhelming. They have no idea where to start.”

@mightyandbrightco

sometimes we forget that we have to teach kids how to do things because they do not come naturally. Room reset board from mighty and bright #chores#parenting#kidsmentalhealth#mightyandbright

♬ original sound – Mighty and Bright

She continues, “When we teach kids how to break down a big task, like cleaning a room into manageable chunks, we make this big chore easier to execute and kind of fun. After all, who doesn’t like checking things off of a to-do list?”

And that’s totally true. Who among us hasn’t made a to-do list that included the task “make to-do list” just so we can check off something right away? It feels great to accomplish something—which is why having lots of smaller challenges is the key to getting your kid to spring into action.

@mightyandbrightco continues, “The first couple of times we might need to go through the steps with them, but once they get the hang of it, you can add a room reset to their weekly task chart and they’ll know what to do.”

Here’s what she recommends for the checklist:

• Get a trash bag.
• Put trash in the bag.
• Dirty dishes in the sink.
• Get laundry basket.
• Dirty clothes in basket.
• Clean clothes in drawer.
• Get a “no home” box.
• Put away items by color.
• Throw away trash.
• Find a home for “No Home” items.
• Have a dance party in your clean room!

Because of course, every job should end with a dance party.

We’ll be trying this out ASAP and we have a feeling we’ll be enjoying lots of clean-room dance parties in the future thanks to the ingenious hack.