How to involve your kids in the decluttering process

When I asked for questions my social media followers would like answers to this one came up a lot. And my first thought to answer this was…

DON’T!

We all know how difficult it is to do anything productive when the children get involved. It seems like you take two steps forward and three back. As soon as you tidy or do laundry, more mess and dirty clothes are created. So it just seems like the ideal scenario is to declutter when they are nowhere to be seen and hope that they don’t throw a tantrum when they realise you’ve donated their favourite unicorn t-shirt (even though it hasn’t fitted them for three years) or you’ve thrown away a rare Pokemon card because it looked like the other 1000 pokemon cards scattered on their bedroom floor. 

Children are rarely good at dealing with change, and neurodiverse children even less so. So despite the worry that a decluttering session with your child or children will melt down into an unproductive afternoon wasted or a battle of wills, getting them involved in the process and making them understand the benefits of decluttering and organising our items will not only give them the autonomy they need but also stands them in good stead for when they grow up and have to make these decisions all by themselves.

My top tips for getting your children involved in the decluttering process would be:

Do it with them.

No matter what age, if you want it to get done then throwing a black bin bag at them and expecting them to declutter their rooms themselves is like expecting a glass of rose to miraculously fall into your hand on the dot at 5 pm.  It won’t happen. There needs to be some effort on your part to get to the end goal. Work together, be fair and try and avoid getting into arguments about whether things really are their favourite or not.

Set a time limit.

Kids have very short attention spans, especially nowadays with YouTube and TikTok etc. Therefore you need to keep them engaged and only give them short periods they need to focus for. It's amazing how much decluttering you can get done in 15 minutes if you are focusing wholly on that task. So phones down (yours too), set a timer and get cracking. Then take a break and come back together for another HIIT-style declutter session. Having time pressure also means less time for faffing and umming and ahhing so decisions can be made more quickly.

Explain the why.

Children won’t just do things ‘because’. They need a reason and no, “Because I Told You So” doesn’t cut it anymore. The reasons to declutter are twofold and you can choose either or both depending on your child. Explaining in an age-appropriate way will also help. 

First reason: When we all live in a nice, clean and tidy home it helps everybody’s moods and we don’t have to spend as much time cleaning and tidying so we have more time to do fun things. We can also find things more easily so we don’t have to get stressed looking for things.

Second reason: Sorting out items we no longer want or need means we can give these things to charities. They can either make money from selling them in their shops and use that money to help people/dogs/cats/etc or they can give our items straight to people who aren't able to afford them for themselves. Children can play with your toys, food can go to the foodbank etc.

Giving them a reason and also making them feel like they’ll be helping others is a great way to get them on board and may give them the push to let go of more items than they ordinarily would have done.

Make it fun.

As much as Marie Kondo says you shouldn’t listen to music when decluttering because you can’t concentrate fully I say Fooey. If music gets you and your children motivated then stick Spotify on. You can also use songs to give time constraints to a task. “In the next song, can you find three things to give to a charity shop”.

Give them a fun goal if they complete the task. Is there a film they’d like to watch or a special tea? Set these goals at the start with clear parameters and reiterate the goal and the prize when attention starts to wane or energy starts to lag. Try not to make the prize another piece of potential clutter though! 

Pick your battles.

Sometimes, no matter how hard you try, decluttering with children just isn’t the thing. If you are on a deadline yourself ie. you have visitors on the way or you’re moving house and the kids just aren’t playing ball, then you may need to take things into your own hands. My tips for this are a) Don’t be too ruthless. Even if you’re stressed or cross don’t dump their favourite teddy and b) get the evidence out of the house as soon as possible. If you can drop them off at the charity shop on your way to the school pick then do that, otherwise hide them in the garage rather than leave donation bags in the hallway for them to see as soon as they step through the door.

Do you get your children involved in decluttering or not? Do you have any great tips that I’ve missed? Let me know in the comments below or on my socials!