Teach kids with ADHD to make choices and learn personal preferences through decluttering. Minimalism has more benefits than most of us realize.
Letting kids choose what they like and need in their rooms helps them gain confidence in decision-making and allows kids to develop personal preferences and tastes.
Most kids in western homes grow up with too many possessions. The reasons for this are many.
- We tend to use possessions as measuring sticks for how we measure up to our neighbors and friends.
- Advertisements bombard us daily telling us we’ll be happier, prettier, or smarter if we buy their products.
- We parents and grandparents often shower children and grandchildren with excessive gifts.
- Kids may have packrat tendencies.
- We parents may not allow our kids to get rid of things they’ve been given.
- When my kids told me they wanted to donate some of their things I struggled to let them give stuff away. I tried to keep everything just in case! In the end, I realized I needed to work on myself.
- We live in a consumeristic society. Many kids buy into that way of life and aren’t satisfied with new things for long before they want something else.
- My son struggled with always wanting something new. It all came to a head in the fifth grade when we kept bending over backward to help him get whatever new thing he wanted. We told him we wanted him to earn the money to buy his latest craze, but he nagged, obsessed, and talked solely about his latest obsession till we broke down and sponsored him with the last 20-30 dollars he required. A PlayStation, Xbox, robot, Lego sets, and Star Wars toys were all things he obsessed over. After helping him purchase three or four items we saw a pattern of dissatisfaction after owning the new item for around three days! At that point, we realized we were not helping him by giving him the rest of the money. Paying for the item didn’t stop him from getting obsessed with something new three days later. (I think this behavior was amplified by his ADHD.) We finally sat him down and told him we would not sponsor any more purchases and that we were sad he didn’t seem to like any of the things we helped him buy. We also told him he couldn’t constantly talk about the new items he wanted to buy. We said we would listen to him talk about what he wanted to purchase once a day and after that, we would put on headphones or ear protectors if he continued to rattle on about it. We wanted him to understand that it’s not healthy to talk solely about one thing and wanted to help him realize it wasn’t socially acceptable behavior. This did help, but it took months of dealing with obsessive behaviors and wearing protective earwear.
Often it’s we (the parents) who give children so many things that their bedrooms overflow! When you combine excessive gifts with a child who can’t let go of their possessions you get a bedroom that fills to the brim and overflows into the rest of the home.
Often problems like this are a combination of several points from the list above.
Helping your child be a good decision-maker reduces anxiety
When my son was in grade school, I stuffed his room with excess clothes and toys! I thought I was doing him a favor but in reality, It was a disservice!
I assumed everyone wanted lots of options, but all the clothing choices made getting dressed overwhelming for him. I couldn’t have been more wrong!
When parents continually fill kids’ rooms with toys and clothes they deprive children of opportunities to develop decision-making skills. Kids in these circumstances rarely learn what their tastes and preferences are.
Helping your kids declutter their rooms and take an active role in the decision-making part of the decluttering process hones their decision-making skills.
Most kids don’t make many decisions on any given day. It’s true that young children shouldn’t be given too many choices, but not allowing kids to make any decisions on a daily basis causes children to feel they are incapable of making their own choices.
I’ve noticed in my kids and even in myself growing up that when we did get to decide something we often felt anxiety over the decision we’d made. First, we were anxious about what to choose and once we made up our minds we often had anxiety over if we made the right decision and second-guessed ourselves! Anxiety over what flavor of gum to choose is not healthy!
Kids who are anxious over decisions, second guess their choices (often or always), or who take forever to make up their minds need to exercise their decision-making skills, so decisions come easier and without anxiety.
Kids who don’t make many decisions regarding their wardrobe often lack personal style preferences.
I noticed this lack of personal style in friends during my growing-up years. Friends who didn’t know what they liked because they couldn’t decide what entered their room. Most of their possessions were inherited from older siblings.
This phenomenon isn’t solely a hand-me-down problem. Once I spent the night at a girl’s house in junior high. Her mom left new clothes on her bed constantly. My friend didn’t even appreciate what her mom bought! She explained that her mom left stuff in her room way too often, and she wasn’t sure if she liked the clothes her mom picked out. When we woke up, she pulled on the garments her mom bought and shrugged. She had tons of clothes but didn’t know if she liked any of them.
I didn’t understand why she needed more clothes in the first place. Her drawers were full, and she couldn’t find anything when I wanted to borrow shorts. What she needed was a major room declutter. Deciding which clothes to keep would help her find her personal style.
Kids can’t keep their rooms clean and tidy when mom and dad insist on filling them to the brim.
When I let my son declutter everything he wanted to get rid of in his room, he kept his room in order all by himself!
I encourage you to roll up your sleeves and help your child declutter their entire room! You’ll teach your child how to make decisions and hone personal preferences, picking up and tidying their room will be easier, decluttering will decrease overwhelm caused by clutter, and much more!
Copyright Annie Eklöv