Decluttering the Boy’s Room – With Video!
Since we decluttered my daughter’s room a month ago, I’ve been talking to the boys about it being their turn. The room was to the point that they didn’t know what to do with the stuff. To clean up they would shove everything in an available box and stick it in the corner.
It was a mess every. single. day.
They already knew they needed to get rid of 500 items to earn a trip to DQ for ice cream with mom- and they were very motivated to do that.
You will notice that there was a lot of junk in their room.
Minimalism helps me. But I am careful not to let it rule our lives- or my kids lives. I don’t have any hard and fast rules about collecting stuff. My kids are normal, they go to Chuck E. Cheese and bring back plastic junk. They have birthdays and Christmas gifts. They earn their own money and buy things that I think are useless.
But I don’t control it. They are their own people and they need to learn for themselves what brings value to their lives. It helps them learn when they spend their hard-earned money on things and then decide to donate them two months later. I don’t shelter them from that.
I also want them to be able to walk into a room and know how to manage it. If that means I have to help them declutter and clean every 6 months until they’re out of the house, that’s ok with me. (My adult sons manage their rooms/homes well now!) I was overwhelmed by theses types of jobs. You can see in the video that they aren’t. I’m thrilled with that! No meltdowns, no fighting, no drama. Just doing the job and enjoying the reward. That’s a success! 🥰🥰🥰
First, we removed all the toys and junk from their bedroom and piled everything in the living room. Next, we sorted the things left in their room: Blankets, stuffies, coats.
Then we moved to the living room and separated categories: Legos, Bionicles, Wooden Blocks, Playdough, Pokemon Cards, Perler Beads, and Chainmail supplies.
All we had left was misc. items that they would pick out their personal 20 toys from.
Paul kept around 10 items. Titus kept all 20.
Titus and Paul made all the decisions and were happy to see their room was so clean. And it’s easy for them to clean/pick up their toys again.
For more help, here are blog posts on decluttering with kids:
