When I first read The Life Changing Magic of Tidying Up, and I started decluttering our entire home, Barry was 100% on board. I actually think he wanted me to start this process 12 years ago…when we got married.
But then, there was Annie.
Let me tell you about my Annie (age 6) – she’s a firecracker, a smart cookie, an actress in the making….and a PACK RAT. She would save anything her little hands grabbed hold of: junk mail, broken toys, wormy chestnuts (yup), toilet paper tubes, empty packaging, you name it.
I thought, “Annie is going to FREAK OUT.” But guess what? We didn’t encounter the fight that I thought we would.
I know the struggle is real – because you’ve asked me here on the blog and over on Instagram as I share our decluttering pictures: BUT STACY!!! WHAT ABOUT MY KIDS?! If you think decluttering with kids is impossible, I’m here to tell you that it’s not.
I want to share with you how we’ve done this alongside our children and made it work – because I don’t think anyone should be decluttering out from underneath someone. Don’t declutter your kids’ stuff (unless they are toddlers/babies) with no help from them or they won’t understand…and they won’t pick up on the new change in your life….and what change is that?
Teach your kids to be happy with LESS. If you do it for them, how can they cultivate that attitude?
You shouldn’t be ripping stuff out of your kids’ hands while they drag behind you holding your skirt screaming like a mountain lion. Okay? Okay. 🙂
Marie Kondo says that if you declutter YOUR life, others will see your happiness and follow suit – including those in your household. And let me tell you – I’ve seen that to be true in the lives of a few of my friends whose husbands were NOT on board at first.
I began talking with Annie while she watched me declutter the house. I started with a few things in our basement while doing that – and then we moved on to toys.
The things I told her to talk up the decluttering?
- If you’re surrounded with less, you’ll be able to play with the things that you REALLY love! We will keep your very favorites. No worries.
- If we declutter, you’ll have LESS to clean up when I say “time to tidy up!” And guys – this is the one that REALLY spoke to her, because she hates spending her time cleaning up. Less cleaning?! YES PLEASE!
- We can donate your unused toys to children who don’t have any of their own – so we can share our happiness with others.
- You can help me and we will decide what is your favorite.
Now, I didn’t do this with my 2 year old or my 9 month old for obvious reasons. I was able to keep their favorites because I see what they play with every day and what they neglect. Neglected toys are not loved toys. Out they go.
So, we started with moving all the toys to ONE location (post coming on this very soon). As we did this, Annie helped me decide what to keep and what went away. Being part of the process really helped her.
“But Mama! I want to keep this! I love it!!!!!” When was the last time you played with that, Annie? Don’t you think another child might play with that every day? We can keep your favorite backpack baby instead. “Hmmm, okay Mommy.”
Things that I didn’t think should be kept, but caused her anxiety when I mentioned getting rid of them? They went into a box – and if she never mentioned them again, we donated them. If she did mention something she wanted, I went and got it for her. Most things she forgot about immediately. Neglected toys are not loved toys.
This is where a Toy Library comes in VERY handy – if your child wants to keep more than you think they should, but they are all loved toys, you might consider a Toy Library so you can rotate loved toys without the clutter of them ALL being out.
So, we were able to declutter the toys and Annie’s room…but, I didn’t want to squash her spirit or creativity – so we came to an agreement.
See this tub? This is Annie’s treasure box tub. In it, she is free to keep anything and everything she likes. BUT, it must fit in this tub. If the tub gets too full, she cleans it out and keeps only her favorites and starts over.
I have found that just being able to completely control this one area has made her totally happy. This is her box. She’s in charge of it. I know it might not work with an older child…but instead of a box, how about a certain area of the house that is completely theirs? A chest of drawers? A closet? Under the bed tubs?
If you have a pack rat, this might be the solution you’re looking for.
However, I’ve noticed that as we’ve decluttered, her pack rat tendencies have dwindled. Not gone away, but dwindled. “We don’t want to keep that because we would have to clean it!” Yup – you got it, baby cakes.
So, let me encourage you other parents out there. This process CAN be done. It CAN be done with children. Do NOT use your children as an excuse for leaving your entire house cluttered and in shambles. They will learn what you teach them.
I’m also in the process of reading Simplicity Parenting and learning what toys are best and how to declutter your child’s ENTIRE LIFE…not just toys, but electronics and outside influences that can harm them mentally at a very young age.
I try to keep down on the toy clutter by rotating out toys. I do daycare out of my home so I have an abundance of different age of toy out to meet the needs of all ages. I have found to keep the clutter and mess to a minimum I store toys in bins on shelves and only open one or 2 at a time.
My friend, @Simply Rebekah has a great system she calls Toy Rotation. It’s super cool!
This is one of my main concerns. I haven’t finished reading Marie’s book yet, but I did chuckle as I read in it that children shouldn’t let their parent’s see what they discard. Here it would be *me* trying to not let my kids see what I discard. They *need* everything. It can be used later. I might need it! Etc, etc.
I haven’t actively started decluttering because I want to finish the book but we’ll see how it goes when I do!
And I was a little disheartened when I read that it could take 6 months to complete. 6 months? Seriously? I can hardly keep focused on much for 1 month. So, I’m hoping I read that wrong. 🙂
No – 6 months is right. Once you start, you’ll realize why she said that and you won’t feel overwhelmed. I finished in 3…but I’m not 100% done because I still need to do kids’ clothes in the attic – too hot right now!
I had no idea how much junk my kids had pack ratted away in their rooms until faced with the challenge of trying to move them into one shared room. So far we have donated 6 bags of stuff, and thrown away our entire outside garbage can full and several trash bags. We’re slowly getting there.
You go, mama!
Thank you for the box idea! That will definitely come in handy with my daughter as well!
I’m glad to hear that! 🙂
I love this! My daughter is having a bit of a hard time with our decluttering. Some things we donated with dear 5 year old’s permission have suddenly become “super special and I really wanted to keep that”. I love your tote idea and may try to implement that by giving my daughters each a cupboard! I’m curious, have you been successful with Marie Kondo’s suggestion to keep all of one category in the same room/space? Right now we have toys in our living room, basement and bedrooms. We also have art supplies/games/learning/sensory play in 4 separate places in our home. I’m hoping to change that as we “konmarie” a good portion of it and when we move, but I’m not certain what that will look like yet. Thank you
Yes – I took that advice VERY seriously and it makes perfect sense. So, I moved all the toys to one area. I’ll be posting about that on Friday. 🙂
Can’t wait!
Okay, so I decided to post that on Monday. LOL
Great advice! Toys feel overwhelming right now. We do have communal toys like Cindy described, except that the kids still claim ownership if they received it after a gift even if they have outgrown it and are letting a younger sibling use it. I didn’t realize this was happening until we were pretty for our garage sale. I’m thinking about putting all the toys in a pile and letting each child pick their 1st favorite in order from oldest to youngest and so on and mediating ownership claims. I have my own favorite toys that aren’t necessarily the kids’ favorites. I need to give them permission to let go of those.
That sounds like a good method! Also = FB yard sales have made us much more than a regular yard sale!
Oh, Stacy, this is EXCELLENT! I only wish I had this information before I had children and they were all grown up and on their own! Nevertheless, I DO have grandchildren so am passing this along. 🙂
Thank you! 🙂
First! Most large families seem to end up having mostly communal toys (or so the internet tells me), but in our home we still have individual toy boxes. Six kids, six boxes. Yes, it sounds awful, but it’s really managable. They’re small boxes. Our family members love to buy gifts for the kids, and no way am I going to discourage that way they have of showing love. So, not being at all enamored of the idea of rented storage space, my kids have learned that very, very few possessions are meant to be forever. We have a clear-out of the toy boxes about twice a year, and I also occasionally just swipe a broken underappreciated toy and dispose of it. After a few years telling my children the same things you say here, they just do it for themselves about half the time. You give good advice. It works.
I don’t have “boxes” but each child has their own toys…they’re just stored in the same place. 🙂
I’m not saying how you *should* do it, but once they get a little older you will probably find that they want their stuff kept separate. Whether you want to encourage that or not might depend on a lot of things, but big kids tend to want little kids not to, say, get jelly all over their Transformers. Also, I have a big, high shelf for things with little parts like legos, and sets like blocks, so that I can control when the chaos comes out. So that’s another good tip for keeping things tidy without having to throw it all out. 😀
Good tip! 🙂 That’s why I mentioned that mine are all littles.
And thanks! You give good advice too. 🙂