On the other hand, I think we critics would all have been much more receptive to this advice if it had been given by someone whom we considered to be an experienced parent. We’re being hard on the author because we feel that she is telling us what to do without having walked a mile in our shoes. Certainly there are ways of keeping an organized home with children. Her method won’t work for everyone (I can’t imagine lining up my child’s toys and telling her to pick which ones to get rid of…but we’re pretty choosy about what makes it through the door in the first place), but it will work for some. I don’t think that she meant to say that this is the one and only system that every family should use; there is not a single system that will work for everyone. (And what a boring world it would be if there was!) I think a lot of us parents are tired of advice, tired of more information and instruction; we need encouragement. We’re in the trenches, and a word of encouragement goes a LOT farther than a word of advice. But that’s not what Unclutterer is here for. It’s an informational, instructional site, not an encouragement site. I can’t really fault an advice site for giving advice.

This post is a case-in-point. Ask your children to help pick which toys to give away? You are (a) insane, (b) mommy dearest, or (c) not a parent. In any case, that’s the most ridiculous thing I’ve ever heard.

If you’ve bought too many toys for your kids, why make them suffer the consequences. How does that help them? Does it really make anyone’s life better? Yours? Theirs? Is there a lesson to be learned in having to give away things you enjoy? If there is, it’s eluding me.

Children are a product of our parenting, their environment, and of course, their own nature. Even the most zen parent has to fight a tide of western culture telling our children that acquisition and accumulation are good. Challenging that culture is a lifelong battle that cannot be won in a single skirmish of sorting in the living room. Parents that practice that sort of rigor on their children are setting themselves up for some expensive psychiatric bills in the near future.

Some children take naturally to simplicity and order, others do not. Go ask a long time Montessori teacher if they’ve had any students that “didn’t fit.” My bet is any school that’s been around a few years knows that some people just don’t easily fit the uncluttering mold. If your children do, awesome. If they don’t, don’t force it. It will only drive them from the path.

Instead of waging war with your children over things. Perhaps borrow this book from the library:
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obi.....tterer-20/

I have three pieces of advice for parents:
1. Be flexible. Things will rarely be how you expect them to be.
2. Swim with the current. Even difficult goals can be achieved with persistence.

And lastly, 3) If you’re just about to have kids, go out and give other parents a lot of parenting advice right now. Get it out of your system before you realize how much of an ass you’re being.

Isaiah

My mom had five kids. In order to maintain a certain level of order, she had a neat trick. We could use whatever we wanted in the living room during the day, but anything left in the living room after we went to bed was confiscated by my mom. Whatever it was — toy, game, book, jacket, homework — was put up high in her closet and we had to earn it back if we really wanted or needed it. Let me tell you: one time of having to explain to your teacher why you didn’t have your homework, or being quite chilly while waiting for the bus, and you learned very quickly to pick up everything in the living room!

I can’t try this, as my children are grown, but in hindsight, I would have purchased DOORS with LOCKS for the toy shelves that held my perfectly labeled toy bins. Want another bin? Put one away first. Maybe the locks could have eventually gone away (they seem so “ugly’) when they were more trustworthy, but they could have pulled out 10 more bins in 10 seconds.

My kids loved to dump the bin and combine all kinds of toys. Very creative (as adults they still are), but a horrible job for them/me to clean up. With doors and a lock, i could have at least limited how much came out. Locking up toys is really not my style, but having fewer things out would have been calmer for me and them. I think that asking them to choose 1-2 bins each would have let them feel like they were getting what they wanted to play with and we all would have seen me as less of a warden.

It was even worse when guests would come and then be called to come home immediately and didn’t help clean up. One of my neighbors had cleanup at 5:00 pm (guests usually left after that time) and then they read or played quietly with one toy. There wasn’t a big mess when a guest had to leave and the house was neat(er) when her husband came home.

If I’m ever a grandmother, I’ll try this.

I try to only buy multi-use toys, and purge every once in a while, (with my kids help).

The kids are not allowed to have toys from Fast food places that we occasionally eat from – we have talked a lot about junky toys that only end up in land fill.

I have found that my 7 and 9 year old really need a place of their own where they can display their “treasures”.

They both have amazing imaginations, and make lots of little crafty things that can look like junky clutter, but are precious to them. They each have a shelf to display this stuff on, in their room – every so often I say, “are you ready to let this go?” and they are usually happy to get rid of something to make more room on the shelf for something else.

I think there is a happy balance when it comes to kids “clutter” – you have to make spaces in your home that they have some say over (in our house this is in their room).

We don’t have a playroom and all the toys live in our family room. This limits the amount we can store. We also purge 2x a year – right before birthdays to make room for new toys and right before Christmas & Hanukkah.

We’re also BIG on purging. We (with her) go through every piece of every toy bin about twice each year – before Christmas and birthday – and it’s well worth the effort. She’s a great “giver-awayer!”

Also, take a book out of the Montessori pedagogic, and keep kids entertained with learning real skills such as pouring water, cutting veggies, sweeping the floor.

The responsibility lies with the parents not to buy their children so many toys they’re swimming in them in the first place. Buying a child toys and then expecting them to calmly, or even happily, give them away is unrealistic.

Note all the suggestions above about each toy Having A Place. In some preschools, they put a picture of the toy on its spot on the shelf, so when it’s time to put the red car away, you look for the picture of the red car. Things like Legos, toy soldiers, etc go in labeled bins. The bins with the hinged attached lids are particularly good.

I’ve found it helpful to have a designated table where toy soldiers, train layouts, Lego sculptures, etc, can be left out.