How to Teach Children to Take Care of Their Belongings

Children are prone to scatter things around the house. Anywhere you go, if you have kids at home, you are surely to see something scattered at the place where they have been for only two minutes. This is actually a very normal behavior of children as they still don't have the notion of what's neatly arranged and what is not. However, by teaching children to take care of their belongings at a young age, they would be able to integrate this behavior until they get older, and you would surely be thankful for it.

When children start going to preschool, like in nursery, it is the best time to start teaching them on how to take care of their belongings.

Try to designate a place for your child to keep his things at school such as his books, notebooks, pencils, crayons, and paper. It may be a small desk with a compartment underneath or a box that he can call his own. Explain to your child that he must place all his things in this specific location. Don't expect your child to learn it the first time around, it may take several days before your child would be used to this kind of routine. Remember that patience is always the key.

Whenever your child comes home from school, instill the discipline in him to go to this spot in your home and place his things there. Pile his things neatly, and while doing so, make sure that your child is closely observing what you are doing. By constantly doing this, you would notice your child doing it all by himself after some time. This is one way of teaching your child to take care of his belongings.

You can also teach your child to arrange his things in his bag. Doing this would instill the value of properly caring for his belongings. Whenever you would see his things in disarray, try to call his attention and explain to him that whatever thing he owns he must take care of it so that it would last for a long time. He must handle things with care all the time.

Proper care must also be rendered to his toys as well. Oftentimes, a child would just throw or destroy his toy if he feels that it is already old and is not looking good. You have to make sure that even if his toy is a little bit faded and old, he still must return it to its proper place and not break it deliberately. This way he will learn to take care of the things that belong to him.

Teaching a child to properly care for his belongings is a very rewarding experience especially when you see your child doing what you taught him. This is not an easy task but if you are patient enough, you will surely see your child becoming better at taking care of his belongings.