How to keep kids away from harmful household junk

When looking to remove a lot of junk from your house, you might run into a specific problem. Curious children. Your kids might want to know, see, and feel everything. Obviously, this can be a real problem when it comes to some items. If you want to keep kids away from harmful household junk, you will need to do several things. First, many local movers offer junk removal services which will leave you a lot more time for your children. After that, you need to talk to your children directly, post some signs, make sure that there is nothing interesting where the junk is, devote some of your time to your kids when junk removal is happening and, if everything else fails, scare them into listening. We will see to explain each and every item from this list in further detail.

How to keep kids away from harmful household junk – Talk to your kids

You should always start with this one. Talk to your child, try to explain what is going on, why is it dangerous. Your words need to be clear, concise, and above all serious. The best thing to do here is to figure out how exactly to approach the child. Sometimes a serious manner will simply not do, due to rebellious streaks and so on. Try to read up on how to talk to your children, if you want your words to have a maximum impact.

If this way solves your problem, it is absolutely perfect. However, you still might want to employ other reminders for your kid. Children have short attention spans and are easily distracted. It might be that your kid has every intention to follow your words but is simply distracted with something else and does something it is not supposed to. To try and avoid this, you will need some reminders.

Warning signs

You can post warning signs everywhere there needs to be one. This is a great way to have a reminder for your kids that the areas are off-limits. These signs can really help to keep kids away from harmful household junk, and other dangers. You don’t need to go overboard with them but make sure that they are present wherever is a real danger to your kid.

Just make sure that your kid is not the type to purposefully go where it is not supposed to. That can be a common problem for children. They might have an irresistible urge to go and see what they are not supposed to. If professional movers or junk removers are working, the last thing they need is a child at their side, because it might be dangerous for it. But if you sated their curiosity in the previous tip, talking to them, you should have no problems. In order to reinforce this, you might need to:

Remove the reasons for your kid to be near junk

Some of the reasons that your children might go near household junk are if they need something that is there or wants to go to the same room for any other reason than curiosity. If some of their toys are near, you can bet that this is the time they decide to play with them. If you don’t want to use storage units for your junk, then this can be prevented by ensuring that there is absolutely no reason for your kids to even go near all that junk, apart from curiosity, that is. Try not to have any junk in your mancave, for example. You can always talk to your kids and ask them if they need something from there, but don’t put all your eggs in that particular basket, so to speak. You may want to be a bit proactive on this one and figure out if your kids might want to go looking for something of theirs.

Another thing that might happen is that your kids are looking for something and they can’t find it. They then might be tempted to visit all the places where dangerous junk is, even start rifling through it! You need to let them know that there is nothing of theirs in there before they go and search. And for that, you need to:

Devote some time to your kids during the junk removal process

Perhaps all that your kids want is to be near you. During any large undertaking, you might be away from your kids for extended periods of time. So they do something to grab your attention. This is quite common and easily solved. All you need to do it give them that attention. While it might be annoying to go back and forth, this is for the best. Try to give them specific timeframes so they have something to look forward to. And make sure to keep your word. Children are really influenced by that.

Additionally, you can reinforce the whole idea of dangerous junk by saying that even you can’t be near it long enough. That you need a break. This is a good example of positive reinforcement. Your approach depends on the age of the children, of course. You can’t really tell a teenager something like that with a straight face.

If all else fails:

Keep kids away from harmful household junk – Scare them

This needs to be the absolute last option. Scaring your kids is something that should not be done lightly. You should know what your kid finds the scariest, simply apply that to the household junk. Especially if you will be handling hazardous materials. Fear is a powerful tool and can all but ensure that some children will never go near junk again. However, you need to tell them what you’ve done, afterwards.

Again, this is the last option, if all other option fails. The reason for it is that it has a small chance of implanting a permanent fear into your kid. Something like that can even stay for life, in some cases. Think about that before choosing to go this route.