What do I do with all the papers that come home from school?

Cute drawings, colored pictures, craft projects, stories, school memorabilia, and artwork tend to follow children home and, if we’re not careful, take over every surface. The kitchen island, the foyer floor, your office desk, every inch of the fridge…

When you think about tossing them in the trash, a twinge of guilt pulls at your emotions.

“If I throw this away does that mean I don’t value my child?”

And the doubt that fills your mind at that moment forces you to shuffle the papers and set them aside and think: “Maybe next month I’ll have the guts to pitch them…”

So what do we do? Spend hours organizing kids’ school papers! We’re scared to let go, so we cling. But even the best organizing systems don’t always cut it. With school papers, it never ends, and keeping up with everything is just not a reasonable goal.

We have to get rid of it.

It can be emotionally difficult to part with kids papers. We want to hang on to our kids when they’re little, but keeping paper clutter isn’t going to keep them young. It’s just going to keep paper clutter.

It’s okay to let go of physical things. It’s the moments with your children that matter, so let’s talk about how to deal with the hurt, what your kids are really wanting when they paint a picture for you, and how to handle paper clutter once and for all.

What to do with school papers.

If your kid brings home 2 school papers per day, you’ve got a stack of around 62 by the end of the month. It’s possible to store 62 papers, but, what happens next month?

62 more. Weeks go by with more works of art and kids’ papers, making the stack higher and higher every day.

Even if you decide to resolve it and declutter that stack, your courage dissipates, and you end up keeping more than half the stack. The old ones are replaced by the end of the week.

Is there an answer to this cluttery problem?

Yes!!

You can love your kid AND throw out their old papers.

First off: Remember that what you do with that stack of artwork has nothing to do with how you care for and value your kid.

Now, to solve the issue takes time, it takes a change in the way you receive the items, how you display them and talk about them.

Most of us parents get such a large amount of these paper pieces that we become dismissive about it.

When Henry brings yet another image of a quickly scribbled heart and says, “It’s for you!” it’s very easy to respond with, “Oh, thanks. That’s really nice. Will you put it on the fridge for me?” and then everyone moves on.

But what’s important to notice is that it’s not about the paper.

When a kid brings you something like that, it’s an outreach and request for connection with you. They likely don’t even care about the picture.

They want to make you smile, they want to be noticed, and they want to express that they care for you.

Get into the habit of taking the time to look at your child, smile into their face, and thank them for taking the time to create something for you.

They might appreciate if you point out something specific you love about the picture, like the way they remembered to put a shadow under the tree, or how they mixed colors. That makes them feel accomplished, giving them that sense of connection and appreciation they were looking for.

Hug them, kiss them and tell them you love them. When that moment is over, you don’t have to keep that picture.

The purpose of the picture was just fulfilled: a connection between the parent and the child.

When you get into the habit of interacting in this way, you can know that your child feels valued by you by the way you interact with them–it has very little to do with the way you interact with their drawings.

Have a “Welcome home from school!” routine.

I know it’s busy when the kids get done with school: Everyone is talking at once, showing you everything they have in their backpack, talking about recess and what happened in music class.

To change your routine, slow things down. It’s such a great idea to make this a habit with your kiddos.

Take care of permission slips, teacher’s notes, school calendars, and anything else that may need addressing.

Ask that your kids take turns to tell you about their day as you go through their backpack together.

Ask questions about the papers that come home and give them words of encouragement where you think they need them.

Just like receiving a drawing, your child wants to include you in their day. They’re not necessarily needing you to comment on their math test scores or praise their painting–they want to connect with you after being apart for most of the day.

Do you know how long a day is in kid years?

Take the time to connect with your kid as they debrief their day, clearing out their backpack and dealing with the paper clutter as it comes through the door.

Does your kid want to keep it?

It can be heartbreaking as a child for something you worked hard on and wanted to keep is taken from you and trashed.

Be sure you’re having conversations with them to be clear on what they intend to save. If it’s an art project that took a lot of time investment and effort, they likely want to hold onto it for at least a little while.

Respect when THEY want to keep something, within reason. Help them develop a storage or display system to keep it all in order, like a portable file box, hanging folder, storage space outside of their room, or photo books.

Display and enjoy…for a season.

On the walls in our living room is a set of hinged picture frames. The kids know that if they are proud of a picture and want it displayed, this is where it goes.

I enjoy seeing my children’s artwork on the walls, and they enjoy having it displayed where everyone that comes over can see it.

The hinged frames only hold so many pictures, so after a while, they have to be sorted.

I have the kids sort them and toss the ones they don’t care about anymore. They are each in charge of their own frame and, as long as it closes, I don’t regulate what they keep and what they discard.

Most images stay up for about a month before they create something new they deem worthy to display.

This keeps our current artwork in a central location for everyone to enjoy.

The kids also have tape at their disposal, and if they want something hanging up in their room, I let them. We’ve used a string with clothespins to hang up art, and we’ve let them tape them all over their walls.

It’s their space, so as long as it’s not in the way or making a mess, I don’t stress about it.

If you tend to hang pictures on the fridge let them know: “We’ll enjoy this on the fridge for a week.”

And when the week is over, let it go.

If pictures are super special to the kid, you can take a photo of them holding it (or if you have a lot, of all the pictures laid on the floor with the child next to them). This way you always have the picture, but it’s in digital form and not cluttering up your house.

There are several apps that help you archive those pieces that you and your children want to enjoy. They make it easy to share with other family members, social media, and print books.

Creative kid art work display ideas.

Parting with artwork and school papers is an important process that you and your child go through together. Letting things go is a skill that is learned and practiced.

But that doesn’t mean you have to throw it all out.

Here are a few ways you can display and utilize old papers without leaving paper piles all over the house.

1. Frames

Deep frames can display your child’s art until a new piece replaces the front one!

This keeps your child’s latest work on display, while keeping it all stored and avoiding paper clutter around the house.

You can go through the frame routinely with each child (maybe anytime you’re adding a new piece) to see if they’re ready to part with any of it.

2. Gift wrap or cards

Repurposing your kids’ old artwork and school papers is a great way to keep the flow of paper clutter moving back out of the house without your kid watching you throw it away every time.

Gift wrap or cards handmade by your kids are a huge hit with friends and family, and they’ll save you from creating even more paper scraps.

3. Collages

Another idea is to make that art project into another art project!

Double dip on those supplies by using kids’ school papers to make collages, decoupage, and other crafts with leftover school work.

4. Time capsule

With a few of the special papers, you might make an annual time capsule with your kids. They’ll love looking back at memories from last year (or however long you wait to look through it), and it will show them how much they have grown and learned.

And you can BURY IT IN THE YARD, so it’s not cluttering up your house. 🙂

5. Scrapbook

Pieces of school work and art can be a nice addition to the family scrapbook between pictures and letters from the same era! This will only accommodate a few pieces, so let them choose their favorites!

What about written work?

Some of the stories that children write are heart-melting-ly adorable. Some people scrapbook and can fit a couple of significant pieces into their children’s photo album.

Or tuck the story in the back of the book for safekeeping. If you find that you have more than a few, you can have a designated binder with clear sleeves.

Limit what goes in: keep only the ones you love, put them in the binder and remember that this is for you.

Don’t save it for your children. Granted, they may want to walk down memory lane sometime and look through it, but I’ve never met an adult that actually wanted to take that artwork with them when they left home.

If you save it, do it for you–don’t burden your children with more stuff when they get out on their own.

If your child is in love with writing stories, encourage them to write and save files in a cloud like Google Drive.

You can also scan illustrations and save everything for one story in a folder to keep.

Side note: Google has the voice-to-text ability, so if your child wants to dictate a story: Google is the place!

“But I’m saving them for my kids to have.”

Nope! Don’t put that on them.

It might seem like a thoughtful thing to do, but it’s actually saddling your kids with future clutter that they have to emotionally process and deal with–because you don’t want to do it yourself.

It’s just pushing the responsibility of decision making onto someone else, and that doesn’t help anyone.

They aren’t going to want their daily worksheets for learning multiplication, or the second grade lunch menu, or an entire box of school papers.

They might want a test that earned a particular grade, or a funny school paper, but for the most part, they aren’t going to want them.

Let them keep a memory box if they’d like to, and let them choose what goes inside. Outside of that, keep what YOU want to keep.

School papers at different ages.

It goes without saying that the way we communicate with our kids evolves as they grow. That means different ages (and individuals) will have different feelings about their school work and art projects.

Elementary

Elementary kids will have more art projects than other school papers. Engage with them when they bring something home–ask about it, point out things you like about it, praise their attention to detail.

After that, they’ll likely forget all about the picture, and you only keep it if you want to.

Middle school

In middle school, there’s less art work and more written work. I find middle school is where kids will be the most unique from their peers, so it’s really a kid-by-kid thing to deal with. They might be very sentimental and want to keep everything, or they might not care at all.

High school

In high school, we start thinking about college applications. Save digital versions of important papers and big projects, just in case it becomes relevant in the application process, either for college or a job.

And: High school kids still want acknowledgement for their work, regardless of how they might act. Even with the too-cool-teenagers, toss them encouraging words when you can!

A note on neurodiversity

Different children might have particular needs. Neurodiversities like autism can make it upsetting and physically painful for a kid to do something they weren’t planning to do, like tossing a painting they worked hard on.

Anthropomorphism shows up in many neurodiverse children, often making the decluttering process even harder for them.

I know if you have a child with special needs, you’re likely very aware of their personal quirks, but not all children are diagnosed.

This is just something to keep in mind: If you see your kid having a very extreme reaction to something like this, please be mindful and give them grace.

What school papers to keep.

It’s simple: You keep what you want. Keep what you’re happy to have.

Let your kids keep their favorites.

You probably won’t throw EVERYTHING out. At the end of the year, you might have a school picture or two of each child, some special papers to keep, report cards, and star-quality coloring pages.

But the towering stacks of kids’ school papers are over. Keep yourself and your kitchen counter free from the burden of unwanted clutter.

How to deal with general paper clutter.

Unfortunately, paper clutter doesn’t stop with the kids’ school papers. Do you have stacks of bills, correspondence, ads, catalogues, and receipts piling every flat surface of your home?

Here’s how to deal with paper clutter for good.