Necessary parenting strategy or Cruel treatment of children? You decide!!
Emeline has a lot of little flotsam and jetsam. It gets really out of control and despite the cash money spent on bins and label makers, it does not get kept organized and/or cleaned. It's driving me out of my mind. So, about once or twice a year, I send her off to her grandparents for the weekend and spend it reorg-ing and deep cleaning her room. Part of this reorg involves Throwing Away of the Things. Now, these things are NOT toys she often plays with or Barbies or Beloved Stuffed Animals, but the little pieces of flotsam (like the plastic basket found at a yard sale or random crap that doesn't go with anything or remaining pieces of games that have long since been disposed of).
I say these are items that have no meaning and after these purge I have yet to hear her ask for something specific, and I am teaching her how to choose between that which is sentimental and means something and that which we are just holding on to because why not? Others have the opinion that I am creating a hoarder by not giving her a 100% say in what she gets to keep and what she doesn't in the name of neatness.
What say you?
What say you?
I say you forgot to mention the metric ton of art/gimp/popsicle stick/toiletpaper roll doodads that come home.
We try to keep some from each year, but this is the Thing That Eats All our Space.
I routinely toss that sort of crap. Mostly when I'm cleaning up the house and so on. Only once has it been noticed.
But I don't tell Ellie about it yet because when I was little, I had a really hard time throwing stuff away or giving it away. I often felt like I was being disloyal to whoever gave me the crap in the first place.
Sox - I did forget to mention. And holy shyza do they bring home a metric buttload of crafts and artwork. I spent a week going through All of the Artwork and choosing some key awesome pieces that we are framing and outting in her room after the reorg.
Pick one: A rock hotglued to a stick or a stick covered in glitter. You Cannot Keep Both.
Pick one: A rock hotglued to a stick or a stick covered in glitter. You Cannot Keep Both.
Glue a rock onto the glitter stick and it's all good. And I think Lawrence Llewellyn-Bowen agrees with me.
As a child, I fished all the stuff back out of the trash when my mother did that.
Some of the parents I work with have a 'two in, one out' policy for toys, books (I know, NO!) and detritus. Like Sox says, asking the child to pick which thing goes helps to instill the values of agency, discernment and letting go.
The ones that are especially successful at it make the giving away an joyful exercise. They find a charity and make it a regular activity for the kids to give away their things.
Also, the consignment shop I'm connected to lets kids 9 and up have their own accounts. They bring in their gently used clothes and shoes and then get to shop once those items are sold. My favorite family (I've worked with one kid and the mom) have 5 kids. They have so much credit that the twin girls (10) never fail to bring in friends of lesser means to pick stuff out for themselves.
It teaches them to take care of their possessions AND the joy of giving.
To be honest, we work through it together. It's not possible to keep everything that comes home these days, even in boxes in the basement. HKF will leave some things out for months, and then I'll ask her if she wants to let it go to make room for some new artwork. Usually that goes pretty well. Previous school used to send home a paper shopping bag full every week, if that gives you a yardstick. Much of this, I treasure. But not all.
