Laundry can be all-encompassing, overwhelming, and time consuming for adults and it can be even more overwhelming for kids. Over the years I’ve developed lots of shortcuts and easier ways to make it through the piles without whining and complaining. This method is the easiest way to teach kids to do laundry.

If you’re looking for guidance on kids responsibilities and chores, grab the brand-new Interactive Cleaning Class for Kids – it’s intro-priced this week only!

If you’re new here you might want to check out how I automate my laundry routine – I do at least one load of laundry every day as a Daily Task – it’s a huge time and sanity saver.

3 Things that Help:

  • Individual Laundry Baskets: Each of my kids have their own laundry basket/hamper that stays in their bedroom closet. I find that this really helps because there isn’t any sorting to see whose clothes are whose. One basket, one kid, easy peasy.
  • No sorting: No sorting through the clothes and separating whites from colors – new outfits go straight into the wash by themselves on COLD to set the color. My oldest two kids are both in high school and we’ve been doing this since they were babies and guess what? No white t-shirts have been dyed pink or light blue. I do separate my husband’s and my clothes because we typically have enough whites and darks for two loads.
  • Wash on cold: We wash the kids clothes on COLD and rinse on COLD and I use Laundry Detergent Spray, Oxygen Whitener and Wool Dryer Balls to keep the static away.  I only use Clean Mama Laundry Products – they’re so good!

Let’s Do Laundry – Simple Tips to Teach Kids

Here’s the process we use for sorting, folding, hanging and putting clothes away. My littlest one will help me as I fold and hang his clothes by putting away undies, socks, and folded clothes. Having your littles a part of the laundry process is a really easy way to inactively teach them how to do their own clothes. Now, my older two are old enough to manage the process, they already know what to do and just need some guidance. It’s a win-win!

Start with taking the clothes out of the laundry basket – as you take them out separate them out into piles – socks, undies, shirts that are hung up, pants, shorts, skirts, etc. Lay them out on a clean floor, bed, or table.

Once they’re all separated out, start by hanging up your shirts. This is the method we use for hanging clothes – it makes it super simple for kids too:

  1. Grab your hangers – have them all facing the same way (it’s easier to quickly hang the clothes this way)
  2. Put a hanger on the first item on top of the stack
  3. Fold the hanger over so it’s still on the stack but not hung up
  4. Keep going until everything in the stack is on a hanger
  5. Hang up the stack

Fold pants, jeans, t-shirts and anything else that needs to be folded.

Once you have everything folded or hung, put it away! That’s it – a method to help tame the madness that is laundry!

Having the best laundry products to keep the stains away is also key – I use Clean Mama laundry products for everything and each load of kids’ clothes gets a scoop of Oxygen Whitener to keep the whites white and to hunt down stains.