I’ve been enjoying hearing the stories coming from those who are reading advance copies of my book that releases next week, Decluttering at the Speed of Life.
This story from Lisa about using the Container Concept to help her son declutter made me so happy:
Reading the kids chapter and wanted to share a story. My youngest son was adopted from China at 4 1/2 years old. After spending four years in an orphanage, never having his own things (and also add that he has autism among other special needs) he is extremely attached to everything. In his room he has some red fabric bins on a bookshelf where he is allowed to keep anything he wants except food.
One day, after I received a package that had bubble wrap in it, he wanted to keep the bubble wrap. I told him he could, if it fit in one of his red bins that were already bordering on not fitting on his shelf. I suggested that maybe he had some things in there that he’d outgrown, and gave him a small box to put things that he didn’t need anymore.
Three boxes later, his bins were all half full, even with the big chunk of bubble wrap he wanted to save. This was the first time he’d ever willingly let go of something. Yes, I did go cry a few happy tears at how much he’d grown up in just a few years after being home.
The Container Concept really does work great for kids, as well as for us. I wasn’t the bad guy (like when I’d sold toys I thought he was done with at a garage sale that he has never forgotten ten years later) the red bins were the container and defined how much he could have.
This has also worked great with the things he collects. I gave him some mason jars to store and display little things he collects. Rocks, shells, acorns, etc. What fits in the jar is what he can keep.
Have you ordered your copy of Decluttering at the Speed of Life? There is a chapter on helping your kids declutter.
I love your contain’er concept & it really does work as does your idea of purging but not necessarily organising… which was always where I got brain freeze & would end up giving up & wondering why I couldn’t organise my stuff??It was too much stuff in a too small space, that was the problem! Who knew???
Thank you Dana x
I love this idea! This is great for keeping your storage areas clean and organized! I’m going to try this out, thank you for the great content!
Wrapped In Rust
It seems to work really with kids to make a rule, and then “blame” the rule what they can or can’t do. Somehow, it’s a little more impersonal than saying “don’t do that” or “you have to …. ” and that seems to take the sting out of it.
when we moved from alaska with 4 children-3 to 3rd grade, we used boxes on the plane as we didn’t have suitcases- 1987 you could use different size boxes. we had a huge box for each child- the largest moving boxes cut down 1 inch. that was the gauge of what they could keep. “Mom can I take this?” “does it fit in the box?” “No”(too big, too heavy, etc) it really helped!