I love spring cleaning. It feels refreshing and makes the home feel lighter. Well, I should say spring organizing. I am a big fan of ‘editing’ all of the spaces in my home and throwing things out or donating what is not needed. It would probably be better not to gather so much stuff in the first place…but never mind, maybe that’s next year’s goal. Also inspiring my spring organizing is the release of Season Two of The Home Edit on Netflix. Those ladies create such satisfyingly organized and aesthetically pleasing spaces that it always inspires me. Check out their website here for inspiration. I used their rainbow idea to edit and then display my cookbooks and it makes me very happy.
Now, on to the tips for editing, the getting rid of stuff part, with kids. It can be a challenge to get children to part with their things, they tend to want to keep everything, even if they haven’t used it in years. So the ‘hold up the item and decide whether to keep, chuck or donate’ plan doesn’t really work as well, especially when an item is right in front of them. Here are 3 (plus one extra) ideas that might help.
Do Your Own Edit
You likely have an idea of what your kids gravitate to most, or you would like them to be playing with more. So do your own edit, and put some items in a tub in the garage. Then return to the items in a month or so, if no one has missed them they can likely go.
Give Them A Container Limit
Find an appropriate storage container for a type of item, and ask your kids to pick their favourite items from that category to go in that container. They can keep as many as they want, but it has to fit in your designated container. For example, my dad likes to create plastic animals on his 3D printer for my kids which they love. However, the collection was getting a bit out of hand, so I gave them a reasonably sized container and asked them to choose their favourites.
Pull Favourites From a Group
Similar to the idea above, give them a limit and have them pull favourites from a group. For example, stuffed animals, choose your favourite three.
Plus one: Appreciation
Finally, try to promote appreciation for each and every item that comes into your home. Help kids appreciate that an item may have been important for a certain timeframe or age, but now we can donate it and someone else can benefit from it. Or maybe there is a specific cause you can donate to. At one point we were able to donate some toys to a family in our area whose house had burned down. It was great to see the kids get rid of more stuff than they otherwise might have because it was going somewhere important.
Happy spring editing! I’d love to see your picture of places and spaces in your home you have edited and organized, and try the rainbow display idea, it’s really pleasing to the eye and joyful!
