In the book On Becoming Toddlerwise Gary Ezzo talks about the concept of responsibility and children represented by an upside-down triangle. A child should be given very little responsibility to start off with and then as they grow and mature, the right of responsibility is broadened up through adulthood. In some instances, bad behavior can be traced to too much responsibility placed on the toddler.
This is not only true of toddlers, but also of children in general. I was reminded of this recently when it comes to Ainsley keeping her room tidy. Natalie is naturally a more organized person and likes to keep her room clean. Ains could care less.
I was constantly asking her to straighten her room but it was clearly overwhelming for her. One day while I was helping her clean it up I realized that with her personality there was just too much stuff. Half of it she didn’t even play with… it was just stuff she had to weed through to get to what she really wanted making it difficult for her little self to keep up with.
Without making a big announcement I started holding stuff up and saying, do you play with this? I repeated the phrase many times as we cleaned that day and we ended up donating several boxes worth of things for other children to enjoy giving Ainsley more time to enjoy what she kept. Most of the donations was the bottom shelf of books. I picked out the books she brings to me to read at night and realized 75% of them she wasn’t interested in at all.
Her bookshelf now looks like this:
Before every shelf was bulging with items stacked precariously on one another. Her pared down items don’t seem like much to play with, but it’s what she cares about and it’s just right for her. Sometimes being organized isn’t about alphabetizing and stacking things nicely, it’s about getting rid of the excess stacks.
(c) 2016 Leighann Marquiss
Comments (5)
I had to look when I saw the title…Children and Organization. Those words do not go together at our house. What a brilliant idea…I bet we could pare down our toys too. Now…off to find the time to do that task.
That’s exactly what I need to do in my youngest kids’ rooms! They end up with all the hand-me-down toys plus all the things that they get for birthdays, Christmas, etc. Now, they just have way too much stuff. Maybe this weekend…
I just did that to the girls room and downloaded so much stuff. There is so much more clear space and the toy shelf/book shelves now stay clear of junk. Now if I can only convince Savannah to stop putting dirty clothes in her toy box I would be happy.
Your post is exactly what I have been thinking of doing not just in Chloe’s room, but my whole house. We all have too many things. Thanks for giving me that extra push to get it actually started.
This is good advice for us “big ole kids” too! (:>)
Love, Linda