5 tips to teach your child to let go of things
Parents are often frustrated by their children’s things. Not only is there so much of it — clothes, books, toys, random knick-knacks, artwork — they’re also scattered all around the home.
You’re not against your children having plenty to play and be creative with, but you also don’t want your living room to look like a playground.
You might have a designated storage space for them, but they refuse to stay put. In any case, the boxes or shelves are overflowing and/or so jumbled that they aren’t very functional. You may have tried different organising systems based on things you’ve seen online, but found that nome of them really work for your family.
You’re so fed up, perhaps you’ve resorted to discarding your child’s unloved items behind their backs, only to have them ask you about it a week later.
The worst part? Nobody else seems to care about the mess!
But it doesn’t have to be this way.
You can work with your child, even from toddlerhood, to change their relationship with their belongings so: 1) they can let go of things they no longer want and 2) they take better care of what they have. This is what my programme, Tidy Toddlers, is all about.
In this article, I cover:
- Redefining our relationship with our belongings
- Setting your child up for success
- 5 tips to teach your child to let go of things
- The joy mindset
- Letting go beyond physical objects
Redefining our relationship with our belongings
If you want to teach your child to let go of things, I encourage you to start by redefining your own relationship with your things.
Where do the things in your home come from? They don’t sneak into through the backdoor or spawn during the night. In a typical home, the majority of things have been purchased and others have been received as gifts or picked up as freebies.
Moreover — and this is key — they have been kept. Consciously or not, we allow things to stay in our home even if they do not serve us or give us joy. We keep things out of habit or “just in case”.
This is by no means a critique. It’s simply a sign that you can develop a healthier relationship with your things. Decluttering is a skill that can be learned. Not everyone is born organised — I certainly wasn’t.
What helped me rewire my attachment to things was going back to my Japanese culture, via Marie Kondo, and learning to love my belongings. Each object has a soul and wants to serve its owner; it wants to be appreciated for the role it plays. Conversely, a forgotten or unloved item is one that has served out its purpose and should be allowed to move on. We thank it for the time it spent with us and let it go.
This way of thinking makes us more mindful about what we buy and what we keep, both for ourselves and our family. Moreover, this almost personification of inanimate objects comes naturally to young children. Far from making them materialistic, I have found that teaching my toddlers to build relationships with their belongings has made them better at letting them go.
Setting your child up for success
Before encouraging your child to let go of things, there are several steps we can take to make it easier for us and for them:
- Control the influx:
- Choose what you buy based on your values. Remember that most of the products you see online or in stores have strong marketing behind them. Parents are especially vulnerable to feeling inadequate or like they’re not offering their children the best opportunities. No, your child does not need any specific toy for their development.
- Create a barrage for gifts. Especially around birthdays and Christmas, be proactive about asking for specific gifts. Speak to your family and friends about your family values around simplicity and your efforts to declutter. Your children might still receive more gifts than you’d like, but you’ve set the narrative; you’ve set the ball in motion. I give a lot more tips on this in my blog post on Christmas with toddlers.
- Take responsibility for unwanted items. Your child might dislike an item you bought or got gifted. It’s difficult not to take it personally, but they have the right to feel and express their preferences, and it’s our role as parents to respect it. Our guilt (”Uncle Bob will be offended”) is not our child’s responsibility. You can gently encourage them to engage with the item, but forcing them will likely lead to resistance and resentment. Plus, if you’re looking to declutter, an item that is unwanted from the outset is low-hanging fruit!
- Set up simple systems:
- Store items by category. For example, all the books go on the same bookshelf, all the plushes in the same box, all the lego together, etc. Keep these categories large and simple so your child can understand them easily.
- Use simple storage such as boxes without lids and don’t worry about details like organising lego pieces by colour or creating a rainbow on the bookshelf. It might look pretty on Instagram, but it’s not practical for everyday with toddlers. As a rule of thumb, go for “easy to take out and easy to put back”.
- Store your child’s things within their reach. This encourages them to engage with their things and builds their autonomy and sense of responsibility. As they grow older, it’s easier for them to transition from “mum takes things out and puts them away” to “we do it together” to “I can do it myself”. Are you worried that they might take everything out and make a mess? It might happen a few times, but they’ll soon move onto something else.
- Teach your child where everything goes. Clearly delineate storage space, add labels with pictures if helpful. Storage and systems should evolve with your child, but don’t change it too often to avoid confusion.
- Discard unequivocally unloved, forgotten items. While I don’t generally recommend discarding things behind your child’s back, if necessary, you can reduce the overwhelm by doing a first wave of decluttering. For example, clothes from several years (sizes) ago, worn-out shoes at the back of the cupboard, long-completed colouring books, etc. However, when in doubt, try to let your child decide based on the tips below.
5 tips to teach your child to let go of things
Once you have started to infuse your approach to your belongings with love and gratitude, it becomes easier to discard things that no longer belong in your life. The same applies for our children.
In Tidy Toddlers, I teach a 3-step process based on the KonMari Method: clarify your family values, sort and discard, and organise. In addition, here are five tips to teach your child to let go of things more easily, based on my experience as a certified KonMari consultant and a mum of two toddlers:
- Modelling. Did you know that 80% of our toddler’s learning comes from observing us? When it comes to tidying and decluttering, “Do as I say and not as I do” will wear out very fast. Shift your mindset from seeing it as a chore to an act of caring for your things. A good way to start is by thanking your home and your belongings. Let this gratitude infuse your approach to tidying.
- Say “thank you and goodbye” to items they’re discarding. Regardless of their current state, each item was brought home and kept until now. Encourage your child to say “thank you” and “goodbye” even to objects they don’t care about. It softens the act of discarding.
- Noticing, encouraging, reminding. Decluttering is about practice. Notice items that are looking unloved and ask your child whether they want to put it away or say goodbye. I’ve found that when I ask my son what he wants to do with a neglected toy, his most frequent response is a relieved “thank you, goodbye”. It’s almost as if he was waiting for an adult’s permission to let go, or a reminder that discarding is an option.
- Explain where discarded things go. You can go to the charity shop together to hand in the donations, read a book about recycling, or do a creative upcycling project.
- Don’t discard behind their backs. Excluding the first wave of decluttering mentioned above, I strongly discourage discarding your child’s belongings without their consent. Let them decide what they want to do with their things. “But they’ll want to keep everything”, I hear you say. But 1) this is where delineating storage space is helpful, as it provides a visual limit to the amount of things they can keep, and 2) your child might surprise you with a simple “thank you, goodbye” (it’s happened to my clients!).
The joy mindset
Remember, discarding is about choosing items that you — they — want to keep. It’s not about picking out what to get rid of.
What items do you want to share your home with? What objects do you commit to taking care of? What brings you joy?
Decluttering is an opportunity to define what’s important to you. Take the time to to appreciate everything that has accompanied you up until now, whether you decide to keep them or not.
Letting go beyond physical objects
As I wrap up, I invite you to visualise decluttering beyond physical objects.
Through teaching your child to let go of objects that no longer serve them, you are laying the groundwork for raising a child in tune with themselves. A child that knows their values, that is able to confidently choose joy and let go of the rest — be it a bad day, negative thoughts, unfulfilling relationships — with gratitude.
It might feel like an uphill battle right now, but take heart knowing that you are giving them a precious life skill. And like any skill, practice makes progress.
Tidy Toddlers
a KonMari-based approach to tidying with toddlers
Let me help you simplify your home and your life.
Let’s create space for your family to thrive.
