I am the mother of three kids two of which have ADHD (hyper and inattentive).
We struggled for many years with how to help ADHD without medicine. My son threw out half his stuff and felt calmer. The decluttered environment made him feel so much better that he asked me to declutter the living room. After that, I helped my packrat daughter declutter her room. Despite her resistance, fewer things allowed her to enjoy her room for the first time in years!
Trying a bedroom declutter and reorganization is cheap, and easy, and it can get results without meds. It’s worth a try!
Annie
To be clear my kids have tried meds for ADHD. My son had adverse reactions to the medications. After the third try, we had to quit and find a solution outside of medicine. My daughter on the other hand takes those same meds and feels better! She wouldn’t make it through school without them.
Drawers and Kids with ADHD!
My Daughter has ADHD and a few years ago one of her biggest frustrations when getting ready for school was not finding what she wanted to wear. I traditionally folded clothes and stacked them in piles in her drawers. That was a big mistake!!!
She rummaged through drawers and tossed clean clothes! When she finally got on the bus I found clothes hanging from the lamps, and trampled on the floor. Clean clothes mixed with dirty clothes and my only option was to rewash them! Marie Kondo’s way of folding rescued my daughter from morning messiness, and it rescued me from overflowing laundry baskets!
Labels take a load off the ADHD Brain!
Labeling allows your brain to relax and quit trying to remember where everything goes. Labels are helpful for kids who don’t have ADHD, so imagine how much more kids with ADHD need the security labels give them. Especially in newly organized rooms, it’s nearly impossible for kids with ADHD to remember where everything goes, and having a label allows mom (or dad) to quit explaining and answering questions about where an item’s new home is.
My daughter (ADHD) tells me nearly every day that she forgets things. We put alarms on her phone and various other ways to help her remember. When she needs to remember homework, gym clothes, and her bus card every day she prefers to not have to remember where things go around the house.
In the picture below we labeled all the boxes above the cabinets. Many of the shelves and drawers have labels on the inside.
Declutter Kids’ Bedrooms it Helps Reduce ADHD Symptoms!!!
Decluttering kids’ bedrooms is paramount to your organizing success! I tried to organize all our stuff for years! I organized our storage room and I organized my kid’s bedrooms, but we had so much stuff it couldn’t stay organized! If you want a decluttered room you must declutter.
This video isn’t advocating that you throw out your kid’s favorite toys. It’s giving suggestions for groups of toys that often lose pieces and toy categories that for one reason or another may need to be thrown out.
When you have fewer things in the room it’s not hard to organize. I made the film below when we were organizing my daughter’s room. You’ll see that there isn’t much in some of her drawers. If you’re wondering the reason she has a knife in one drawer is that she is a scout, and she got her knife badge.
Buy Less and Spend MORE on Quality Items for your Kids!
I made a big mistake on several occasions and wasted money on clothes and toys that didn’t last. It can be frustrating that money was wasted on such purchases, but that wasn’t the main issue when it came to toys.
Toys, even ones that my daughter was frustrated with because they broke, were too precious to part with!
It took a lot of my time and negotiations to help her see that some toys were just getting in her way when she wanted to play in her tiny room.
Prevent Sentimental Paper Clutter from Piling in your Child’s room
My daughter had so many papers from school, craft projects, coloring pages, etc. in her room (before we decluttered and organized) that when I helped her do a deep clean once a month we filled 3 grocery bags with paper trash!
When we decluttered her room I was determined to find a way to keep the papers from constantly piling! The answer was a binder and a five-minute method to immediately file papers and art projects.
Annie
Some items (the best ones) may hang on the fridge or in a place of honor for a week or two before entering the binder, but an ongoing book project that your kids can look at and enjoy is a great way to organize sentimental paper clutter keep it in their rooms without the mess.
I explained it really well in the video below so I am not going to try to explain it better in writing. Watch the video. It will save you time in the long run.
Decluttering Kid’s Clothes has More Benefits than You Realize!
The first time I attempted decluttering my kid’s clothes I was not excited about it and I didn’t think it was necessary. It was my husband who asked me to declutter, and I gave it a try.
To my surprise when my kids only had the clothes they liked left (they helped declutter) they found numerous benefits!
Annie
- They were much happier about their wardrobes
- It was easy to find what they wanted to wear in the morning
- They could get ready for school faster
- Their drawers stayed organized
- More laundry found the laundry basket (Fewer dirty clothes on the floor)
- I had less laundry to do
After decluttering several times with my kids I started doing it myself. I notice clothes and It was obvious what my kids weren’t wearing. Often I left what I decluttered in the storage room for a month just in case someone wanted an item back, but my kids never asked for anything back.
I hope you find tips to make life easier.
The video below is about changes I made in my kids’ rooms to reduce ADHD symptoms. I apologize for the fact that it was one of my first videos and I have a hard time looking the camera in the eye. Just put on the audio and listen while you wash dishes!
Check out my favorite blog post! Help ADHD (ADD) kids clean their rooms and stay organized