BlogHer - Teaching Your Kids to De-Clutter - Comments

Decluttering

Sheerilee — Wed, 20 May 2009 20:12:30 -0500

ShalilahI'd like to share something. I'm always organizing. However when my daughter was a little girl, I'd often put everything away neatly.

However I had a bad habit of not remembering where I put something. My daughter used to say "Mom you hide things from yourself" I laugh when I think about that now.

Great post

chris — Sun, 13 Jan 2008 15:32:44 -0600

I so need to go through all of my medicines. How many half filled tubes of bacitracin does one family need anyway?

Chris

Notes From the Trenches
A Year Off

Great tips...life is about people, not "stuff"

Jamie — Sat, 12 Jan 2008 13:54:27 -0600

For the first time this year I really saw how the media and TV advertising target kids during the holidays.

My oldest daughter is 5 and I heard a lot of "I want" and "I need" last month. I was cleaning out our closets right before Christmas and she volunteered to fill a bag with old toys and stuffed animals for Goodwill. I was thrilled. Despite that, soon after Christmas she started talking about her birthday and the toys she wanted that Santa did not bring. Sigh...

It's a constant battle to teach kids the value of family and friendship over "stuff," especially when they get toys that are designed to make them little collectors (Webkinz, Littlest Pet Shop, etc.)

Congrats on the new BlogHer gig!

Jamie

Link Textwww.blondemomblog.com

I so need this!

LizasEyeview — Sat, 12 Jan 2008 09:43:16 -0600

Thanks Shannon - I rally needed this article about teaching my kids to de-clutter - for ME and my kids :)

:) Liza
http://lizas-eyeview.blogspot.com/

So true!

Praise and Coffee — Sat, 12 Jan 2008 05:56:50 -0600

It's a great message to teach our kids, that people matter so much more than things.

Congrats on the new gig!
Sue

January organizing month

multi-taskingmommy — Fri, 11 Jan 2008 19:59:14 -0600

January is organizing month in my house. I often take on a rather large organizing project and it always feels so good when it has been accomplished! Great post and congrats again on your gig!

Great tips!

amartin1232000 — Fri, 11 Jan 2008 17:53:49 -0600

Being the mom of six children in a four bedroom house, we've learned an awful lot about organization and decluttering!! I agree with Rachel that buying more 'stuff' to organize your 'stuff' can be counterproductive, to say the least!

We declutter on about a monthly basis with two big cleanings in the spring and the fall. It works beautifully to teach us all to value things of real value and not to fall into a "We might need this one day!" mindset.

Great article, Shannon!!

~Lady Why
www.kudzugrows.blogspot.com

Great point, Rachel.

rocksinmydryer — Fri, 11 Jan 2008 15:13:52 -0600

You're right--it sometimes seems the whole organizing "industry" is a bit counter-intuitive. What happened to storing things in a shoe box?

Shannon @ Rocks In My Dryer
www.rocksinmydryer.typepad.com
www.bloggygiveaways.com

The funny thing about all

sarcasticjournalist — Fri, 11 Jan 2008 13:54:05 -0600

The funny thing about all these organizing stores is that they want you to buy MORE crap (well, duh...they are stores) in order to "organize."

As you said, less is more. It is much easier to find a home for something when 100 of its cousins aren't sitting on the counter with it.

It is fun to find out just how much you really don't need.

Rachel, AKA Sarcastic Journalist, now hanging at The Simple Family.

So true!

babaliscious22 — Fri, 11 Jan 2008 13:17:29 -0600

Thanks for this post! It is so true how kids "do what we do, and now what we say" So we have to be first in all of it! :) Thanks for reminding me too:)

http://rangersrus5.blogspot.com/
http://happinessfromtheinsideout.blogspot.com/
http://lifehaveityourway.blogspot.com/

Bertie

Thanks for the reminder. I

Bups — Fri, 11 Jan 2008 12:28:16 -0600

Thanks for the reminder. I recently went through my assortment of vitamins (that I keep forgetting to take!) and found that 3 of the bottles had expired - several months ago!

great tips!

Congrats

Singnjen — Fri, 11 Jan 2008 10:30:25 -0600

Congrats on your new "blog gig"! I love these tips, especially the one about having them journal memories instead of keeping a bunch of junk!!!!

Teaching Your Kids to De-Clutter

rocksinmydryer — Fri, 11 Jan 2008 07:49:07 -0600

There are many good reasons for a mom to get herself and her family organized, of course. We all know that life runs more smoothly when you have a plan, when you remember where you put the kids' spelling lists, and when you don't run out of milk at 7:45 on a Monday morning.

And January seems to be just as good as time as any for purging and cleaning and finding a place for everything ("and everything in its place!"). A quick stroll down the aisles of your mega discount retailer will show you that this is a subject on everyone's brain these days--the bins and the slotted files and baskets abound.

But as I've contemplated the subject of organizing, I'm reminded that organizing is really just about simplifying, and simplifying is about much more than finding a consistent spot for my sunglasses. My kids are watching the way I run my own life (and theirs), and I wonder if I've really been modeling for them the healthiest way to deal with all the STUFF life seems to throw at me.

In other words, I can't imagine that keeping the same bottle of Tylenol in my medicine cabinet for longer than this president has been in the White House is a very positive life skill.

I want my kids to learn that people matter a lot more than things. I want them to feel free to attach themselves to the important parts of life, and not to be unnecessarily weighed down by stuff. I want them to learn that instead of saving a box of shells and sand and postcards and photographs and pamphlets from a vacation, a more useful (and simpler) way to preserve the memory would simply be to journal their experience.

Basically, I want my children to learn the art of living a simpler and less-cluttered life, and I want them to learn it from me.

We've made a few successful steps in this direction in the last year. The kids each have a large plastic bin for their own little treasures (rocks and kite string and curiously important gum wrappers). But when the bin gets full, they know it's time to purge. They're learning, hands-on, to hold on only to the true treasures.

And each child also has a shelf and specially-designated wall space for displaying their proudest achievements: trophies, ribbons, school pictures. But when the designated area gets over-run, it's time for an important discussion about what we really need to keep. When my husband and I work on a reorganizing project in our house, we make it a point to include the kids in our work (even though it often takes longer that way.)

As is often the case in parenting, we're learning this skill together. And as is often the case, that seems to be the most effective way to learn.

I've found plenty of great posts this month about organizing your life and family--don't miss out on hearing what these women have to say:

Ivy writes at Home Ec 101 about keeping things de-cluttered for the sake of the kids and grandkids that come along after you someday.

My Beautiful Mess writes my favorite thought on this particular subject:

Simplify. De-clutter. That’s what I want to do this year. Not just to my house, but to my life. Figuring out what really matters and getting more of that. Sure, it may not add up to a tax deduction, but the return has to be grand, don’t you think?

Chris at In the Trenches of Motherhood writes about the temptation to spend needlessly.

And Cynthia at White Space writes beautifully about cleaning and purging for the benefit of others--what a great thing to model for our kids!