T McAdams

Hello fellow travelers,

We are moving to Oregon next month. We live in S. Florida right now. We
have begun to pack in erneast. However, we have not yet my DD's room. DD
has an abudance of things. She deems everything important including a piece
of paper that she doodled on two years ago. We need to do a major purge
before this move, and I don't know how to find the balance of letting her
keep things and having some of it be purged. The volume of things she has
is overwhelming. This is our first non corporate move in 10 years. We
haven't packed a thing with each move we have made (and we have moved a
ridiculous amount of times).

Also, do you all have good ideas about the free things we can do here
before we move? We're both dying on the vine out here. We have no group, we
have no friends. Our days consist of the same thing every.single.day. We
are going to be super busy w/packing and organizing, but we need to find a
way to get out and have fun, too.

Thanks in advance,
Love,
Tina in South Florida soon to be in Salem, OR


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Joyce Fetteroll

On Sep 16, 2012, at 11:37 AM, T McAdams wrote:

> She deems everything important including a piece
> of paper that she doodled on two years ago.

"Deems" is condescending. Everything IS important to her. And it will be important until it isn't any more.

> We need to do a major purge
> before this move,

You *want* to do a major purge. Unless you physically can't put it in the truck, it's not a need.

How many of your things could be bought at Goodwill or Salvation Army for a few dollars rather than hauling them across country? (Don't answer. It's for thinking about.)

> and I don't know how to find the balance of letting her
> keep things and having some of it be purged.

When there's an imbalance of power, there can't be a balance. Imagine all your very favorite things in the world and your husband is hovering over you waiting for you to get rid of half because he doesn't deem the space in the truck worthy enough for it.

That's how your daughter will see it. You can't change her point of view. Only age can. Only the power to be able to keep it all will allow her to eventually let some of it go.

Most parents will dismiss that idea because convenience is more important than some "silly nonsense" of their kids. And most parents end up with difficult relationships with their kids in a large part because they put their own convenience ahead of their kids.

The mindful thing to do is NOT to never do something for fear of hurting the kids. That would just be a new set of rules. The mindful thing is to be aware of how a child perceives the way they're being treated. Treat them with awareness that they trust you to be their advocate in the world. And if for some reason you feel you need to break that trust, take it seriously.

> The volume of things she has
> is overwhelming.

Yes, some kids are like that. And the more you can help them hold onto things, the more at peace they can feel that they have some control over the world, and then the sooner they can feel free to let things go. But you can't rush it, only reinforce their feeling the world is beyond their control and make them cling tighter.

What I would do is start organizing it. Bring in boxes and bags for trash, recycling and donations. But don't pressure her to put anything in them.

You can ask her if she has some ideas on how to organize it. Some kids love that. But don't pressure her. If she feels overwhelmed, you'll need to do most of the organizing and deciding. Judge by her reactions.

If she doesn't have ideas, organize drawings by age. Separate out things that are being kept but not used and pack those separately. So perhaps they can be stored and not add to the confusion in the new place. Perhaps create boxes of things she likes that can be rotated.

See her things as part of her. See her desire to keep everything as part of her. By insisting she must give things up you're saying in effect you wish she were different.

She'll be different when she is different. Until then part of who your daughter is is someone who needs to hold on to things.

Joyce

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Veronica Deleon-sutter

We also will be moving in the next few months, because of Foreclosure, but we don't know just yet if we will be renting another house or an apartment. My 9-year old daughter has atleast 8 laundry baskets of toys and assorted papers/drawings. But even before this move, we would go through her papers/drawings and she herself would decide what stayed and what went to the trash. Sometimes I would find her sitting on her floor looking through them herself or she would insist that I sit with her as the task of sorting could get overwhelming. I have learned two things from all the 'purging we have done over the years: she will out-of-the-blue ask where some toy is that was long ago donated, and the smallest, tiniest piece of paper can be very important to her.
So, her things are the priority. My amount of things can be lessened to make way for hers.It's a lot
easier for me to get new things if needed. I'm an adult with a job and money and a car...

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[email protected]

Maybe things that fall in this category can be "archived." Literally stored separately or digitally stored. "Archived" sounds respectful to me.

Nance

If she doesn't have ideas, organize drawings by age. Separate out things that are being kept but not used and pack those separately. So perhaps they can be stored and not add to the confusion in the new place. Perhaps create boxes of things she likes that can be rotated.

Joyce Fetteroll

On Sep 17, 2012, at 7:43 AM, marbleface@... wrote:

> Maybe things that fall in this category can be "archived."
> Literally stored separately or digitally stored. "Archived" sounds respectful to me.

That's a good idea.

Ask her if she can create a pile of things she would be fine having a picture of rather than the physical object.

Joyce

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Joyce Fetteroll

On Sep 16, 2012, at 12:39 PM, Joyce Fetteroll wrote:

> You can't change her point of view

Maybe this will help you shift to a point of view:

The more you support her with ideas that lead toward *her* goal, the more open she'll be to a variety of ideas. The more you try to pull her toward your goal, the more tightly she'll cling to her goal and cling to her solution to reach it.

Joyce

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Mary

I have had a talk with my girls about how "things" are just that, things. Yes, we wish we would never have to choose between keeping this thing or that. But we live in a small house and just can not keep every paper we ever drew on or completed. It's not physically possible. Just because I throw out a drawing you made does not mean I don't love you. Things can be gone in an instant~ and what is most important is the relationship behind the thing. So, I would try to approach your daughter in a loving manner and say, "Honey, I would LOVE for you to be able to take every item in your room. Let's just look and try and find a few things (10?) that you think you'd like to either give to someone else, recycle, or throw away." Depending on how this part of the conversation goes, you may be able to say, "We'll work again tomorrow (or in an hour or whatever) and see if you can find 10 more." No whining and cajoling with her. If she doesn't find 10 things then just ask her to start packing! It doesn't make sense to *us* what's important to them~ but I'm sure I kept some things my mom wondered about when we moved 6 times as I was growing up!

Joyce Fetteroll

> It doesn't make sense to *us* what's important to them~ but I'm
> sure I kept some things my mom wondered about when we moved
> 6 times as I was growing up!

Absolutely. We can help them be people who treat others' values -- even the ones they don't understand -- with respect by treating what they value with respect, especially when we don't understand why they value it.

> I have had a talk with my girls

Which is parent speak for telling kids, "You're wrong, I'm right and here's why." Unless someone's hurting someone else, there are ways for sharing views that are less likely to cause the other person to tune out.

Share what you do to help *you* make decisions. Share without pressure to make the same choice, without pressure to see the world the same way. It's shared as information.

If someone -- adult or kid -- is handed an idea and knows they can toss it, they're far more likely to turn it over. If they feel there's pressure to believe it, to replace their own ideas with this new idea, they're more likely to erect barriers to protect their own ideas from being taken from them.


> "things" are just that, things.

Which is *your* value, not a universal truth. It is a principle you use to help you make choices that will move towards *your own* goal of having fewer things.

They can benefit from hearing about how you approach the problem for yourself. It's useful to hear how other people see the world and make choices.

Your daughters' goals aren't the same as yours, though. They will need different tools.

To learn how to make decisions, they need to trust their feelings on what they want and weigh whether or not a choice will lead toward it or not. Right now they're still figuring out their feelings and what choices will lead toward or away. Each time they're supported in making decisions, they get better at it and learn more about who they are and what they like.

They're also changing! So their feelings today aren't the same as they will be next week. But they'll learn by making choices based on today's feelings, not on the feelings they may have in 10 years.

By handing them a goal, by handing them a plan to get there, you're suggesting what they feel is right for them is wrong. You're suggesting the approach to life is to memorize right goals and right paths to those goals.

> Just because I throw out a drawing you made does not mean I don't love you.

Actions speak louder than words.

If an action *feels* to them like "I don't love you", what you want it to mean is irrelevant.

People's beliefs, people's preferences are a part of who they are. If someone dismisses someone else's beliefs or preferences, it feels like a dismissal of them.

> Honey, I would LOVE for you to be able to take every item in your room.

If your actions say otherwise, the words are meaningless. They make you feel better but just confuse your kids.

It would be more honest to say the truck can only carry so much and then to divide everything -- including your stuff -- into piles of "absolutely must have", "really really want to have", "will be sad but will live if it can't come," so when the time comes to load the truck, there aren't last minute tearful decisions.

BUT, kids are completely dependent on adults to get their needs met. Their ability to keep or toss what's there's depends on adult decisions. Imagine your ability to hold onto your own stuff dependent on your husband's decision. It's far kinder, far more relationship building for adults to let what can of their own stuff go in order to make room for their children's precious possessions.

The more power you can lend them, the less tightly they'll need to cling to their ideas, to their things in order to keep them from being taken away. It won't turn a "keeper" into someone who can let go easily but it can make a keeper less fearful that things will disappear and will allow time to let them ease up on their own schedule.

Joyce

sunnyley

Sometimes it is the memory and associations they are trying to hold onto, rather than the object. You could try asking her if she would like to take a photo to keep of the object/piece of paper/random broken toy etc., as an alternative to keep/throw. This would also help her retain a sense of control over her stuff and decisions.