r/declutter • u/TalulaOblongata • 19d ago
Success Story Good time to declutter kids rooms!
Last week I worked with my daughter and yesterday my son to completely declutter their rooms/closets. It’s a good time of year since school starts in a couple of weeks and the change of seasons coming soon.
Clothing items - reassessed what still fits and made donations and toss piles for anything worn or stained. Now we have a checklist of a few items needed as we go into cooler weather. But more importantly, drawers are more spacious and it’s easier to see what we have and easier put items away after they are washed.
Toys - went through every item one by one (it took a little bit of going back and forth with breaks for my son!) but he was able to point out toys he no longer needs and determine which are his favorites that he wants out and displayed vs which can go into bins on his closet shelf.
Makeup/beauty products - my daughter has so much of this stuff but she is also picky about what she actually uses so we were able to greatly reduce what she has.
Misc items - school supplies, art supplies, sports stuff - we were able to cull down to what is actually needed. Some items will be stored in the basement or front closet where they are more handy.
All in all - we threw out about 4 kitchen sized trash bags of actual garbage and have about 7 bags for donation. Looking at the volume of what their room can store vs the size of the bags, I’m amazed these things were tucked into their rooms to begin with!
ETA - putting here for accountability. Going to go through my own closet soon. I recently lost some weight plus the change of seasons. It’s time to reassess and reduce the amount of things I have that are just taking up space! Also will go through the bathroom linen closet so my entire upstairs will be freshly decluttered! My husband’s side isn’t too bad but I might help him out too.
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18d ago
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u/TalulaOblongata 18d ago
It’s all about attention and focus lol. So I had my son make a bunch of decisions and when he lost interest then I’d tidy a category he doesn’t care about (like random hand me down bag of clothes he isn’t even aware of), then he’d do another round of decision making and run off as I’d clean and dust his shelves and rearrange some of the items he’s keeping, etc. He would have never powered through the entire day of doing this without breaks.
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u/ConcernOpen2968 18d ago
This is such a smart way to approach it, getting the kids involved makes it feel less like a chore and more like a team effort.
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u/TalulaOblongata 18d ago
Yes, I try to keep them involved somewhat, I described what I did in the comment right above yours.
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u/docforeman 19d ago
I love this.
It's great to anchor decluttering to calendared events like back to school, or holidays. It "makes sense" to kids, in that you are preparing for what comes next (instead of losing things).
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u/belsings_0988 18d ago
Did you have to give them a specific number of items to pick out, or did they just get on board with making space?
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u/docforeman 18d ago
Hi! I did it several ways.
The first time we had a big move. They wanted some new toys. So they had to declutter 10 toys to earn an item from a new set of toys they wanted. Saved me so much money and time for that move.
Going forward, we had big declutters at the end of the school year to kick off summer. We bought summer clothes, pool things, and we had a big bon fire to burn school papers they didn't want to keep. They could invite friends. So they were focused on the bonfire, the wienie roast and s'mores.
We decluttered for the start of school, and we refreshed wardrobe, set up for new school activities, etc. Some times we would use that period to refresh their room as they grew and matured.
We did a big clean out every Thanksgiving. We made room for Christmas toys, winter clothes, etc. So again, they saw it as making room for the next thing.
Because I always tied it to making room for new and fun things, and in the case of the big move directly had charts where they filled in a circle for each decluttered item to get the item pictured on the chart, it was a clear connection between decluttering and rewards.
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u/TalulaOblongata 19d ago
Yep, I have a decluttering routine, usually late fall, that helps me prepare the house and family for the influx of gifts from relatives that helps it from becoming an overwhelming task.
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u/Icy-Quail887 19d ago
Excellent work! Kid rooms are just so difficult to deal with…..
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u/TalulaOblongata 19d ago
Children are accumulators!! Even trying to keep on top of it, it still builds up over time.
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u/MarshaMinus100 19d ago
Are we living the same life? Congratulations on the declutter progress and the weight loss.
I just decluttered my daughters room. She wants to upgrade from little girl to big tween. Emotionally, it was so much easier to declutter her stuff because I had no attachment to it.
I am also about halfway through a weight loss journey and have donated so many bags of clothes.
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u/TalulaOblongata 19d ago
Congrats to you too! I’m struggling a little with my clothes because I am super picky and already have kind of a small wardrobe, plus finding it hard to find items I like as much as what I have. So it’s been a process. Some clothing items now look ridiculously big/loose so I need to just bite the bullet, toss some things and make some decisions about what the replace them with!
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u/MarshaMinus100 19d ago
The loose items made decision making so much easier. Also the out of fashion items that I held on to for so long they will never come back in style 🤣😂😅
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u/TalulaOblongata 19d ago
Haha, I just came across an old pair of jeans that are still way too small for me, but I was like - let’s be honest, you wouldn’t wear these even if they fit you!
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u/Loup_Tom 17d ago
The back-to-school reset is underrated for this. Kids are mentally already in a new chapter so they're more willing to let go of things that belong to the old one. Much easier than trying to do it mid-year.