Oh, Dearest Mother, Sweetest Virgin of Altagracia, our Patroness. You are our Advocate and to you we recommend our needs. You are our Teacher and like disciples we come to learn from the example of your holy life. You are our Mother, and like children, we come to offer you all of the love of our hearts. Receive, dearest Mother, our offerings and listen attentively to our supplications. Amen.



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Subject Topic: Organization, clutter and stuff! Post ReplyPost New Topic
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Courtney
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Posted: Feb 24 2006 at 12:39pm | IP Logged Quote Courtney
I feel like I am constantly battling my 8yo dd against the overwhelming clutter in her room. For only 2 dc, it seems like we have too many toys yet I know we don't have as much as many kids we know. My dd is very sentimental and everything is "special". She hates to part with anything so at least once a month, it seems like we're cleaning out her desk, closet, bookshelf, etc. Any suggestions? I know I don't handle it well b/c I get frustrated and start pulling stuff out and dumping it in a big pile, then dd ends up in a puddle of tears feeling overwhelmed.    

We have a room at the top of the stairs that is pretty much the play room. Up until now, I've stored all our school stuff in a closet up there. I'm now wanting to move it all back downstairs into my sewing room. I'm thinking maybe all the craft stuff could be better organized in the closet upstairs. At the same time, I hate to just move stuff around.

Help! I guess what I'm aksing is what suggestions do you have to allow your child their sentimentality, but also guide them to purge every once-in-awhile.

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amyable
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Posted: Feb 24 2006 at 2:18pm | IP Logged Quote amyable
What is (sort of) working here is giving each child a certain space that is theirs to do what they want with - I don't fuss about it. With my children, they each have one rolling underbed box with a lid. When that is full, they have to do something about that if they want to put something else in it! Almost all other places have to be kept relatively tidy, their underbed box can look like a tornado hit it and I won't say anything, although I *do* praise neatness and purging. Two of my dc are old enough for these boxes - my oldest has every scrap of paper and knick knack imaginable crammed in there. The second dd purges on a regular basis and has a tiny stack of books and papers in hers.    I think she just likes the praise she gets.

I offer to help my clutterbug dd purge any time she likes, and I help talk her through her decisions. She admits she just loves her stuff! We talk a lot about not hoarding things and about how good it feels to not have to take care of a million little trinkets and scraps of paper.

I know what you mean about moving stuff around, though. Today for my birthday my dh got me industrial shelving for the basement. Yes that is what I wanted, lol!! It's part of my quest for organization but I do feel like I'm just moving stuff from one place to another all the time. We have a small home and hope for more children, so I need to get a handle on my own stuff and my kids toys. I'll be reading other replies to this thread with interest!

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