One of the most frequent questions we get at Clutter Free Academy is “What about my kids’ clutter?”
Conflict over clutter can damage any relationship over time, but it’s especially crucial to navigate this issue carefully with your kids, because what you teach them right now will impact their lifestyles as adults.
As parents, we want to empower our children to have the life skills they need to succeed. Here are four ways we can help our children learn how to live a clutter-free life.
Schedule short decluttering times.
Time-boxing makes decluttering bearable for anyone, young or old. As adults, we’re more likely to focus better if we only have to do it for 15 minutes. Depending on your kids’ age, set a timer and make a game of it. For example, challenge your 5-year-old to clean out one drawer in 5 minutes.
Here at Clutter Free Academy, we don’t expect anyone to spend hours at a time decluttering, much less a child. Decluttering works best in small, manageable sessions.
By the way, we need to differentiate between cleaning and decluttering. Cleaning means putting things away, mopping, vacuuming, and dusting. Decluttering means getting rid of stuff you don’t use, love, or would buy again. Both are important, but in this post, we’re focusing on decluttering.
Teach by example.
It’s been said that in raising kids, more is caught than taught. They tend to learn more from what we do than what we say.
They aren’t born knowing how to declutter. The best way to teach them is to work side-by-side with them to show them the same decluttering systems we’ve learned as adults. Make sure they have the tools they need—3 boxes, 2 bags—so that they have a system in place to declutter. Go through the steps one by one: what to give away, what to throw away, and what to put away. Any trash or recycle goes into the bags.
Have a fun celebration when you empty the contents of the boxes and bags into their rightful places. (It doesn’t have to be a big deal—a sticker, a high five, or a “Yay! You did it!” works great.
Focus on one tiny space at a time.
Trying to declutter a large space is even more overwhelming for kids than it is for adults. Choose the smallest area possible and set the timer. Even better, let them choose which area is the most problematic for them. If they already see the value of decluttering, then you’ve won half the battle.
Divide up the closet into small sections, sort one drawer at a time, go through one toy box at a time. Decluttering is a gradual process. Their space didn’t get cluttery in a day, but a consistent habit of setting a timer to declutter a small space will result in big changes.
Help them maintain their space.
To help keep things organized and tidy, teach your child routines; set times during the day when they put away toys, backpacks, clothes, and anything else out of place. Even five minutes in the morning and five minutes in the evening will work wonders.
To help with motivation, make a timed game out of it, for fun. They’ll be motivated even more by getting consistent rewards each week for working through their routines. Before they know it, picking up their things becomes a habit.
Lifelong Connections
When it comes to clutter, our relationship with our kids is so important. When we come alongside them and give them the tools and skills they need to create a clutter-free home, we free them up to be who God made them to be.
Parent-child dynamics are already challenging enough, especially between mothers and daughters. Reducing clutter conflict can go a long way to improve the relationship.
In their book, Mended, Blythe Daniel and Helen McIntosh talk about how to rebuild, restore, and reconcile the connections between mothers and daughters. One of their chapters deals with generational patterns and how hard they are to break. It takes intentionality and determination to change long-term habits and break learned clutter cycles.
Giveaway!
The generous people over at Harvest House want to give some of our readers Daniel’s and McIntosh’s Mended. 5 people will win a copy and 1 grand prize winner will receive:
-1 Copy of Mended
-Assorted Note Cards
-Distressed Wood Frame
-Fruit Infuser Water Bottle
Enter to win by commenting below. What sorts of rewards motivate your kids the most? Which of these tips do you plan on implementing first?
I’ve found that trips things like that motivate them to accomplish things. Like a trip to the zoo or a fun vacation. I have teens.
For myself and my kids I’m going to implement dividing the room into sections and just working on one at a time. Small goals with long term results.
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My kids are motivated by encouraging words. I think I will use teach by example, because I believe it works…
My older kids are motivated by earning money and my preschooler likes to choose something from our prize box (stickers, pencils, etc.).
I would like to implement the 5 minute pickup as a consistent part of our daily routine.
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My kids are motivated to clean by being able to listen to their choice of music while they work. I already use the idea of assigning one small space to focus on. It keeps them from feeling overwhelmed by the thought of cleaning up their whole room and they can get that sense of accomplishment by completing that area rather quickly.
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The thing that motivated my daughter was using a timer kind of beat the clock and I would do it as well with my room, same time
The reward … getting to go out for ice cream
I will implement not speaking negatively “You are so messy”etc.
Grateful for this segment of mother and daughter as I have had difficulty and I felt encouraged as i listened in to mother and daughter and cried i am missing my now young adult daughter on mostly off relationship
Thank you
What motivates my kids the most? Affirming words
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We homeschool so I have had to up my game a lot!
My kids respond most to planned events. Like I’ll pick a place to go on Friday ( for instants the splash pad) and if they get all their school work done on time we take a family trip there but it is also something that can be taken away with negligence and insubordination.
I have to keep on eye on their cues. If I push to hard for completion my son with crumble and my daughter will stress. No matter the outcome of the trip we always have long breaks and fun here at home anyway.
Fear. Guilt. Shame. The clutter that takes over our heart and soul. Wow. Love. Forgiveness. Grace..the decluttering tools in order for me to face the heart of my precious daughter of whom a wall has been built. Fear to hear what she may say because of the guilt that I fall short or the shame of my not being the perfect mother, who believed that just because I raised my adult children in Him then they would receive me perfectly. Prayers as I continue to walk out in faith to have this wall broken down as it has come in~between my relationship with my grandchildren. Thank you for sharing your authentic hearts!
Candy motivates my 2.5, 5 and 7 year old, but my 7 year old likes paper money!
My kids are motivated by getting to go somewhere for ice cream. Who doesn’t love ice cream!
My kids respond when we clean together (10 min a day) before lunch or dinner.
It keeps the house orderly and creates a habit.
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My kids respond when we all clean together (10 min a day) and then have lunch or dinner.
Cleaning daily makes it a habit and keeps everything orderly.
My baby is only 1, so many of these won’t apply till she is older… but we currently clean up together! She loves singing so we have a clean up song – that motivates her! She also just learned high five!
I hope to apply the “relationship with your kids is most important”. We don’t have much clutter around the house, but I notice myself on my phone a lot. I would like to put more focus on her and building that relationship!
The thing that motivates my kids is having me work with them.
I like the idea of one space and a limited time. Doing a bit every day or so, helps me too. We are cleaning up for an extended family get together on Mother’s Day and my youngest has been cleaning up a little at a time, because she is excited to visit with her cousins. They live quite a distance from us, so we don’t see them very often.
My kids 15 and 12 tend to get overwhelmed so this advice is good.
My youngest daughter went through the toys in the basement, on her own, so that she could get things together for a yard sale. She is wanting to buy a horse, which is a very huge and la ong term goal, but I do not want to deter her.
For my daughter, she works better if self motivated. She doesn’t like to do the regular chores required of her. She even cleaned up the spare room because she wanted a decluttered space to do her devotions in.
We divided our house into 3 sections – upstairs, downstairs and dishes and split it up among our 5 kids (2 older kids with 2 younger kids with one older kid by himself). Every night for 10 -15 minutes we do a power clean playing loud music with lots of singing and some dancing involved:) Each week they rotate their cleaning section so no one gets stuck with the dreaded dishes for 2 weeks in a row! ha Then when the whole house is clean the evening is just family time. We’ve been doing this for 10 years now and it works!
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What works for my four: deep cleaning their rooms is expected once a week. Before you think that sounds too harsh, do know that we have decluttered already and each bedroom only contains each child’s bed, dresser, desk and only the toys/stuffed animals/books they love. This doesn’t add to a whole lot of work. We are thankful for the changes learned from this site. After they each deep clean their rooms they get one and a half hours of (adult approves!) screen time. This is the only time they are allowed to be on screens all week so it is a good motivator. Now that it’s consistently warm outdoors we have transitioned into some fun activity outside (bike riding the trails, rock climbing, swimming, horse back riding, etc.) as a part of their reward. What I do need to work on is the consistent praise for the daily strides they meet. One of my kids is very neat and I know I have room to celebrate those daily victories too! I would love to win a copy of Mended. I have all girls!
So I asked my children your question:
My son’s reply: “You!” He likes when I give them the 5 things challenge–get rid of 5 things. Sometimes this is just garbage (papers, oh, the papers!), but it helps them to see the need of really looking at what they are keeping and to make decisions.
My daughter’s reply: “Singing!” She sings while she works, and that makes the time go faster.
Now to do one of those 5 things challenges today while we sing. 🙂
I like the idea of small snippets of time—that seems to be a motivator for my daughter. Also, doing all chores before getting her phone tends to be a great incentive! 🙂
The tiny space idea–emphasis on tiny–makes so much sense. The words, “Clean your room” are so daunting, but “Let’s make just the top of your dresser look neat and pretty”–I think that’s something my girls can do, maybe even today!
The short decluttering times and focusing on a small space is so helpful even though my kids are 18, 15 & 14. It helps me as well because it can be overwhelming, even for us adults! We try to have a set 4pm quick pick up which really helps in the areas we are most in during the day. Thanks for all the helpful tips!
My older children are motivated by offering an experience ( ie clean your room, you get to go to Grandma’s house or shopping with Mom). My younger children are motivated by gum. I need to be better about having a set time for picking up.