Stahlke Adoption

The Exercise

When the kids first arrived, the amount of clutter in our house predictably just exploded. Our house is small, the kids weren't used to putting things away, and they were suddenly given lots of possessions, which they had never before experienced. And we had gone from two people in the house to seven.

Over the last two years, I've reclaimed most of the rooms one by one. By reclaiming, I mean having items in that area that belong there, not miscellaneous other things from the rest of the house. The kitchen happened early on, of necessity. Next came the laundry in the basement, which was aided by locking the basement for six months. It was such a relief to have a place to dump things quickly if I didn't have time to sort them. Anything in the rest of the house wouldn't stay put if the kids could get into it.

After many months, the dining room took shape. The piano sports family mementos and recent greeting cards and children's art, while the hutch surface holds library books and DVDs that have been borrowed. These can't be with our personal books and DVDs or they'll disappear for months! The kids' backpacks for school are tucked into a corner, accessible to us but out of the way when they don't just toss them.

Next came the living room, which took almost a year. Over time, we acquired a toybox, some coat racks, and several bookcases for shoes, winter gear, and DVD/videos. But the constant stream of toys never seemed to end. Because the children's rooms are so filled with beds, they do most of their playing downstairs in the living room, and it always had their stuff everywhere. We tried cleaning up by having everyone put things away after supper, but by bedtime the room would be strewn again.

Finally, I found a solution, which feels draconian, but it works. If a child leaves toys downstairs, I collect them in a bag for Goodwill. About once a month, I spread all the collected toys on the table for them to examine. Each child gets to take back three items, and the rest is given away.

The first time I tried this exercise, I braced myself for conflict over the loss of their toys. But to my pleasant surprise, they were very curious about which toys were reappearing. And the ones they couldn't keep tended to be things they didn't care about (which is probably why those toys had been left out for me to collect). And best of all, since I started this exercise, the amount of clutter in the living room has been reduced to a minimum. The room is starting to look like normal again! I'm debating moving the exercise to the yard and up the stairs to the second floor.

posted by Stahlkes @ 9:42 AM