Motivating your Children to Declutter

A guest post by – Cindy Bogard

On day 261, I shared how I got ready for my decluttering journey and the ways in which I had readied my children. So how did I actually get them involved? You’re going to laugh at the irony of this: stopping and tiny rewards. Yes, quitting and stuff!! How funny is that? Let me explain…

We clean and declutter for a predetermined number of minutes or complete a predetermined drawer or shelf and then stop. Stopping is important. Your children need to know that it’s not going to go on and on and on. Even if it’s going dandy, stop. Tomorrow will get here soon enough, and you can do another shelf or work another 20 minutes then.

Praise throughout. Discuss how much you like their cleaner room. Use positive phrases, not negative ones. (“I love how tidy your books look.” Not, “Thank goodness I can finally walk through here without killing myself.”)

1. Prompts to help them declutter include:
2. Do you still like this?
3. Do you still want this?
4. Does it still fit?
5. Do we have all the parts?

Who else would enjoy this? Sibling? Cousins? Younger neighbors? Thrift store? Sell on Craigslist or Ebay? (Perhaps the child would get money from the sale, although mine don’t.)

If they don’t want to give something up, don’t fight. Any decluttering is better than no decluttering, and it’s all part of a larger process. Just discussing why they still want it will bring reflection.

Then they get their reward. My kids get an actual reward, although another type of reward system could be set up around privileges or special activities. What I have for my children is small, well chosen, and desirable stuff, not things grabbed willy nilly in the “little plastic junk” aisle; things I might have purchased anyway or an upgrade of something I would have purchased (a snazzier folder for school instead of a plain one, for example). I have given them pretty colored pens (just 2, not the whole pack), sticky notes (my youngest loves them), quarters, Bella Sara collecting cards, a package of gum, and once even a package of cuter-than-normal panties. (Yes, the kid needed underwear, and I managed to turn it into a reward.) If your child has bigger dreams (a Wii game, for example), I’m sure you could work on a points system for earning it a little at a time.

As the summer has progressed, I have stopped giving rewards for every single decluttering and now use them for motivation when interest is low or when they do an additional chore above what I have asked.

When I ask, “Who wants their room worked on today?” I can bet that I’ll hear a duet of “mmmeeee.”

ITEM 262 OF 365 LESS THINGS

Just one more thing that has been hidden away since they kept dropping off the wall.

A guest post by Cindy Bogard

This summer in May, I discovered Colleen’s blog and committed to a 365 decluttering on June 1. I keep myself honest (and hopefully inspire others) by writing about my journey daily on Facebook. I was already partly on my way when I discovered the 365 day challenge: I’d been doing some heavy organizing and decluttering on my own, and when my girls (8 and 10) got out of school at the end of May, I told them that we would be cleaning one area a day.

At first we were just cleaning and tidying. Perhaps one girl’s room, perhaps one of the areas they use often like the living room or their bathroom. We would certainly “move things along” if we encountered something we no longer needed, but we were neither diligent nor focused on decluttering until I took the challenge.

Since my eldest daughter’s birth, our house has been pretty shamefully messy at times – long stretches at a time. I had not always set a great example for them. Nonetheless, in beginning decluttering with them, I did start out with a few advantages:

1)   My children do not watch commercial TV, which keeps the “want its” at bay. When we do see a commercial or a toy that looks cool at the store, we discuss: 1.)What is the purpose of advertising? 2.)Are those kids really going to enjoy that as much as it seems like they are? 3.)Is this a good price for this item? 4.)Do we know anyone who has this item so that we could try it out first?

2)    We primarily shop for durable goods (clothing, furniture, accessories, etc.) at thrift and consignment stores.

3)   I do not particularly enjoy shopping, so neither of my girls considers shopping a hobby.

4)    As part of our faith, we talk about the need to give to and care for those who have less than us, and I often emphasize how fortunate we are because we have everything that we need and many, many of things that we want.

5)   I realized one day that I tell the girls (and my husband) “no” and they probably didn’t realize that I tell myself “no” too. So I got in the habit of discussing my purchases out loud with my children. Now they see that I sometimes see things that I desire and tell myself no and walk away.

If you want to get your children involved in a journey that will be lighter on your wallet, lighter on the planet and will leave more than just a path through the living room, what advantages do you bring to the table? None? Of course not!  At a minimum, I know that you bring two important things with you, things that you can build from:

1)   a desire to make do with less and

2)   a supportive community here on 365lessthings

ITEM 257 OF 365 LESS THINGS

This light glode was faulty when I recieved it I am not sure why I didn’t throw it away then but it is gone now.