1. Sink to their level. Get on your knees in their room to view
things from a kid's level. Convenience is an important factor in
getting anyone to organize or put things away. Lower clothing
racks in the closet. Put most frequently used items on the lowest
shelves and in the lowest drawers. Set up decorative, short open
bins, crates, baskets and boxes in corners, on closet floors and
at the foot of the bed.

2. Hide stuff under the bed. Use flat, rectangular storage bins
on wheels that are made for under-the-bed storage. Designate one
of these for Barbie dolls and another for mini toy cars. Store
your children's artwork including construction paper and crayons
in one of the bins. Older children can store schoolwork and
notebooks here. Got music lovers? They can keep a pile of CDs
handy here.

3. Make organizing fun. Organizing can be a drag even for "big
people." Imagine how your child feels at the thought of clearing
away his toys, clothes and school work. Get your children
involved by letting them creatively label their own drawers and
bins. They can make personalized drawings as labels. Or you can
take photos of your child with an object that goes in the drawer
and tape it to the front of the bin or drawer. Is the drawer
supposed to hold small toy soldiers? Tape a small clear plastic
pocket to the outside of the drawer that's stuffed with an
example of the contents such as one toy soldier. You can buy
notebook plastic sleeves (also called sheet protectors) from any
office supply store. Then just cut them to the size needed. Use
clear shipping tape to attach labels to bins. Put a laundry
hamper under a kid size basketball hoop.

4. Keep drawers shallow. The deeper the drawer, the more kids
will fill it. With a few exceptions for big bulky items, use
shallow drawers. Some narrow storage carts on wheels come with
five or six shallow drawers. You can roll the cart into the
closet if needed or line several in a row against a wall. Fill
deeper drawers with mini-organizers such as small trays, tins,
recycled cardboard boxes and more. Don't use lids on the
mini-organizers; that's just a hassle for kids to find their
items and remember to put the lids back on each item. Use
makeshift cardboard dividers to separate things in drawers--like
socks.

5. Color code it.  Buy blue bins for Barbie dolls and red bins
for fire trucks. Put summer clothing on green hangers and Sunday
dress outfits on blue hangers. Or use different colors for
different children. Suzy gets blue bins and hangers and Sandy
gets red bins and hangers.

6. Hang it. Your children might view their collection of
self-created artwork in much the same way as you view your
collection of store-bought artwork. Buy inexpensive frames and
hang drawings in a clustered artistic layout on one wall in your
child's room. It adds a decorative and personalized element. Put
up a cork/bulletin board for the kids to hang ribbons and medals
from field days, school spirit events and competitions. Another
cork board can be for photos. Or hang a rectangular vertical
homemade fabric organizer with pockets beside the door to hold
photos, souvenir card collections and birthday cards through the
years.

7. Set ground rules. For example, before you play another board
game, you must first put this board game away. Before each
gift-giving season, you must pick one item to donate to a
nonprofit organization; it brings a smile to the face of a child
with less than you. You can only keep things in your room that
have a place. So if a drawer is full and you want to keep
something new, you must discard something from the drawer (for
example, an old piece of artwork for a new piece of artwork or an
old broken toy for a new one). 

Nationally published freelance writer Karen Fritscher-Porter
writes about home organizing solutions at EasyHomeOrganizing.com.
Visit http://www.EasyHomeOrganizing.com to read more than 
50 FREE articles containing dozens of home organizing ideas 
and solutions. Plus subscribe to the FREE newsletter updating 
you about the latest home organization products sold in stores.