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Parenting toddlers is a great deal of fun and excitement. The toddler years and younger childhood years are so full of new and exciting milestones being reached by your bundle of joy. Part of parenting toddlers and young children is to help them prepare for their adult lives. It's hard to imagine that your bundle of joy will be driving a car and getting a job one day! One essential skill that all adults need is the ability to organize. Teaching toddlers and young children to organize is one of the many important lessons you will teach them.

Picture Label Dresser Drawers and Shelves

Picture labels are a great way to teach toddlers and young children to organize. Parenting toddlers, you have probably realized they love pictures. If the young children are old enough, you can even label the pictures with the appropriate words.

Start with the dresser drawers. Put a picture on the front for socks, underwear, pants, tops and so forth. When you do laundry, have the toddler help sort the clothes and put them away by the pictures on the drawer. This is a great way to teach toddlers and young children to organize while they're young and it can be a game.

For shelves in their room, do the same again. Label with appropriate pictures. Each day have the toddler and young children pick up their room and place appropriate items in the right spot. Parenting toddlers and young children to organize will help them do it automatically and more easily as adults.

For the Main Living Area Have Everything in a Place

Another good area of the home to teach toddlers and young children to organize is the main living area of the home. Parenting toddlers and children to organize is primarily teaching them that everything has an appropriate place. Also, it is teaching kids to sort and categorize their items and household items.

Have a specific place for items in the living room, such as the remote controls. You can place DVDs in a certain spot. Designate an area of the main room that is specifically for the toddler in your life. Just as you did the bedroom, picture label the area so that your child can place the appropriate items in the correct spots.

Ask Kids for Their Ideas and Listen to Them

You will be amazed at some of the ideas that kids can have for organization, once they learn the appropriate places to put things.
For example, my niece told me that it was better to have the good books (children's books) on the lower shelves instead of on top. She also thought it was neat to shelve the books by their height. This actually looked a lot neater than what I had done with them.

Young children are more apt to follow instructions and be willing to help organize if they have an input and say in how the organization is done. If the suggestion is too far off the wall, you can always show them how it won't work. Give the child hands on experience for learning to organize and get suggestions for how to organize a different way. It really gets the thought processes going.

Learn more about this author, Joyce Priddy.
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