Children play area is a very important area. Generally in 5S we need to always have a space for everything. As the term everything has as place and everything in its place is a mantra for 5S straightening and arrangement. This is an important education process that we need to inculcate in our children. I know for some parents this is not important as their parent has not been strict on this, but we need to start somewhere.
So the main idea here is how do we get family room and children play area to be in a good coherent manner. How do we make sure that parents are happy and children are happy with space. To do that I would propose the followings 5 main tips to do:
1. Create a personalized space on children play area
First things first, everybody need to know where their space is. For a family room to be sorted and arranged the parents and the children area need to be properly specified. Within the family space, create a specific boundary which area is for the children and which are for the parents. This would help the children to be accountable to their space. In addition, this will also create a personal awareness that they are responsible to ensure that the space need to be maintained per standard.
2. Train the children 5S concept
Before we start on making the journey to improve the family room with our children, I would suggest that every members of the family including our spouse or partner is taught the 5S concept or other suitable concept of arrangement or making the room in a good order.
If the children play area is important to you, then it should also be important to the kids and the whole family. The only way that we could convey that a space is important is through shared values and principles. This could be done through 5S or other means. I am not talking about getting cult about it, but getting some basic of language and terminology that everybody could understand and use.
For example in 5S, the first step is Sort, i.e. removing unnecessary items from the workplace. The term workplace is is general, it is a place where you do work. For kids this is their play area, that is their work, the place where their imagination run wild. So, it is important that we educate everybody on a shared values.
I know that organization and country have shared values, and why not our own family. What is our shared values? Honesty, punctuality, sharing all those could be our shared value. Train our kids in a shared value of 5S, and the children play area could be a children play area of joy and happiness and not a children play area of horror and madness. You decide as a team members in the family.
3. Colorize your shared space
Be a reason for your kids to like you. Colorize your space. Make it fun and make it interesting. As in anything that we do to improve relationship, it is best that we colorize the shared space with our kids and not to do it alone.
Some of us as adults would like to have uniformed and in a single color scheme. We feel like having rainbow colors in the house to be to childish or would degrade the looks of the house. But, is it? We need to know the purpose of the color within the house.
White would the house to look bigger and spacious, but other colors works well if we just know the combination. This is where our creativity comes in. Work out with each members of the family, what is their favorite color and see how we can manage those within the house. If rainbow is the choice, then probably find a corner or a feature wall to do them. Or eve better engage with the kids to create a creative feature wall which all could enjoy. Make it a family fun to come out with the desired scene. It is important to have everybody involved.
4. Use Toys as decorations
Keep your toys in the closet and boxes please! Or display them with proud. Which of these would give a positive impact to your kids. A lasting image of how proud they are of having a piece of theirs in display.
Generally, even for me sometimes I feel that toys are a nuisance since they are usually cluttered, damaged and sometimes mixed in different boxes and areas.
However, how about putting your kids toys on display.
Make it in such a way that their toys need to be arranged in such a way because it is displayed to everybody in the house. Some of the child might like them, some might hate them, but in the end they learn that arrangement is needed for a display to be elegant. They could be creative in doing so. As we should not expect symmetry in the arrangement, but we should expect some thoughts on the arrangement. Something which is not random.
5. Children play area large or small stools
Moving into my kids kindergarten I realized chairs does not come in the same size. During my younger age, all around me seems to be big. Adults are big, chairs are big, tables big and there rest are all big. They are design for adult sizes. But, do we really need all to be adult sizes. Nowadays you could get many things in the children size or mini sizes. Just shop around and you will see this commercial trend moving into both larger and larger, and smaller and smaller. Miniaturization and magnification seems to be the deal of the day.
Think small, think big, both are good in the room. What we need is we need to cater for all members of the family and even guests. Do we ignore our kids choices of furniture? If we do, then we are losing the best part of the children play area. How are they going to feel that they are part of the space if the furniture are not to their level. This is like saying to the giant in the story Jack and the Beanstalk, saying to us you are part of our family and do use what ever it is in the house. The size itself would be different. In the end, what we need to to communicate, communicate and continue to communicate.