No clutter in 2015: when the kids get on board

Over the past 6 months of trying to declutter our house, I have learned several important lessons. 

One: decluttering works best if it's a team work.

Two: kids are a major source of clutter. Well, not kids by themselves, but the amount of toys, drawings, books, etc that comes with them. And because they grow up too fast, they outgrow a lot of those things pretty quickly. Wanting to get rid of them is another story.

Three: seize any decluttering opportunity you get, because it may not repeat itself again. 

Ok, so while you may be a little confused as to the point I'm trying to make here, let me tell you the story behind it. 

Last Friday was my kid's last day of summer camp at school, so now they are officially on vacation until the beginning of September. While my son was getting ready for bed, we had this conversation: 

"Mom, Catarina (a friend of his from school) says she has a lot of toys, but I have way, way more..."

"You do have a lot of toys, the problem is you don't play with half of them. And you're always telling me you have nothing to keep you busy." (which is something that truly bugs me)

"But mom, I love them all!"

"I know. But maybe there are some toys in you closet that you played with when you where a baby. You're a big boy now (he turned eight in July) so you should go through them and see if there are a few you can give away to other little boys whose parents may not have enough money to buy them toys."

"Good idea! Tomorrow will be cleaning day!"

See where I'm getting at? This was an opportunity I could not miss! Of course on Saturday morning I had to remind him again of what he had agreed to the day before. And I guess I did most of the cleaning in his closet anyway. 

But just getting him on board with getting rid of old toys allowed me to fill a huge bag of stuff for donation. Success!

Now I'm going to try to see if I can get my daughter to do the same next weekend!

Enjoy the rest of your week!