Survey #178 Response from Helen
| Pronouns | She/her |
|---|---|
| Name the collections or categories of stuff in your home that are typically most likely to become cluttered. | Children’s toys is our major trouble spot. My daughter is an avid collector and I don’t want to take that joy from her, but equally I want to teach her that you can’t have all the things. Currently we have a rule that if she gets any new cuddly toy she has to let go of an old one. Even this is causing her pain, and last week we had tears in the toy shop when she decided to not buy a toy she desperately wanted to buy (and could afford) because she wasn’t willing to let go of an old one. |
| Complete the following statement: “My clutter started to become a problem when _____.” | When my child got their own room. |
| Describe a habit or routine behavior that you would like to cultivate—or eliminate—to help you or other members of your household get a better handle on household clutter. | I would like to help my child learn that as she grows and her interested changes she has to let go of her ‘old self’ items (or at least some of them). I would like to do ‘one in one out’ for all her possessions: clothes, books, toys, craft supplies but at the moment she is finding this very hard and we are only doing it with cuddly toys. |
| Name one or more of your favorite Clutter Fairy-isms (e.g., “thin the herd”) or decluttering and organizing mnemonic devices (e.g., OHIO—Only Handle It Once). | Thin the herd |
| Here’s your chance to ask Gayle and Ed any question you’re curious about. It need not be related to this survey’s topic(s). | Do you have any tips for helping a child to learn to treasure some possessions without clinging to all of them? |
| Future topics | I’d love to hear more from you about objects vs experiences. It’s something minimalists talk about a lot in the sense of ‘experiences have value and stuff doesn’t’ but it’s so much more nuanced than that. Our things help us remember past experiences, and our things create the experience of home for us. Everything is interconnected. I overcame my own tendency to clutter by really valuing my stuff and digging deep into its meaning for me. I realised I wanted to feel like every object I owned was cared for and that that mean I needed to have fewer objects. So many of us who struggle with clutter do so because of the meaning of things. Finding ways to acknowledge meaning and still let go is so important. |
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