This 5 step plan for success will lead to less stress for you and your kids.

Kids and clutter – they kind of go hand in hand. Like crackers & cheese or gin & tonic, two of my favourite things 😊 but kids and their stuff is not. It just seems to create stress, mess and not a lot of fun – which is ironic since they’re mostly toys.

We often start so well in our first nesting stage during the pregnancy: folding, sorting, organising, having checklists and then sleep and feed schedules but before long it feels so out of control.

They don’t sleep when they should, they seem to quadruple the chores even though they are so tiny. Friends and family drop in with gifts and meals, and before long we are overwhelmed with stuff and the frozen dinners have run out. And that’s just the first couple of weeks!

As parents, we want our kids to have what they need, and doesn’t the world love to bombard us with a never-ending list of requirements that we didn’t know existed yet alone that we “needed”?

It doesn’t take long and we feel that tiny person has taken over the space, and it only gets worse once THEY start bringing stuff in ( anyone else had to care some special sticks, stones or other treasures found at the park?:P)

We can’t stop all the clutter coming in, but we can take back control and also train our kids on how to manage their things – and we can start young (but don’t worry if your kids are older– they are still trainable!!)

So here are some of my tried and tested tricks to keep your kid clutter under control.

1. Time Out

It’s important to actually schedule in the time to declutter/ tidy/ clean. There is no magic fairy in the home (although sometimes I feel like my family still believes there is one), so we need to not pretend it will just get done. Be generous with your time allocation too, its better to have spare time than to be constantly running behind on your schedule.

2. Contain yourself!

Not really yourself, but your kids’ stuff. They need designated spaces that have limits. I’ll never forget my first DD job, the mum was complaining that they kids never put their bags away when they came home from school. They just dumped it, and the contents. I asked her where they should go, in an attempt to understand where the systems was flawed. She replied “I don’t know”, to which I replied “if you don’t than neither do the kids.” We can’t expect our kids to be able to read our minds and know where items should go, but even more so, we can’t expect our kids to know this behaviour or habit. This is something we need to teach them in. Some will be more natural to it for sure, and some may find it challenging especially if they struggle with ADHD.

This is why containing our kids’ stuff is essential. You have all heard the phrase ‘everything in its place’, it sounds simple but can actually be a challenge especially with kids’ stuff, which seems to be ever changing, ever moving, ever growing!

I feel some mums go a little trigger happy with their Dymos or laminating machines. Labelling can be helpful, but it also can be a recipe for perfection paralysis so keep the categories broad and try not to be too pedantic with it all – they are kids…in training.

4. Make it Fun!

Kids have short attention spans and need lots of positive reinforcement so let’s make it fun.

• use a timer and do short, specific spurts of decluttering/ organising eg ‘the trashbag tango’, have a couple of bags one for rubbish, one for donations and set the clock and see who can get the most in the bags in 5 minutes
• pay them 10c for every pair of socks they can pair.
• Make a fun production line to assemble the weeks sandwiches and lunch box fillers – working together on the weekend to make the weekday morning easier to manage.

5. Practise makes good enough (cause perfect doesn’t exist!)

I want you, the parent, to resist doing it all for your kids. This is important!

We can’t expect them to just know what to do. And they will never learn if we don’t allow them the chance to try. We want to create problem solvers not direction followers. So try this: instead of asking them have you your book, uniform, lunch, bus pass etc ask them questions like, “What do you need to be prepared for school today?” “What’s the 1^st step to do that?” or “What’s the plan?” Get them to do some thinking. Help them to be future aware – to look beyond the right now. Train them to utilise those Executive Function skills which are essential for being organised.

This month Decluttering Diva is focusing on kids – we will be sharing daily hints, tips and lots of motivation over on our social media pages. Lots of inspiration to get your kids and their stuff organised for 2021. But it starts with us, the parents, to be challenging our thinking and allowing our kids to be involved and being patient in the process.

We need to #letgotogrow.