Reader Questions and Tips on Organizing.

LOL!!! When our daughters were younger, this was a problem, esp. since the bathroom was used by guests as well as our family. Finally one day I told them if they didn't pick up the pile and put it into the hamper I would put their dirty clothes in the tree in our front yard. They laughed it off so as they went off to do their fun for the day, out the clothes went (not the unmentionables, just jeans, socks, t shirts and 1 pair of shoes...) When they returned home, their friends got a chuckle, they weren't embarrassed but did realize that when I said I would do something, it got done...

Now many years later, at a different house, I have yet to see dirty clothes on the floor...guess it worked!! And they still laugh about the tree decorations that day....

Bonnie


I am going to try this with my kids. They ALWAYS leave their stuff on the bathroom floor too! I would have to say that I would probably put the underwear out there too! HA!
Mom said she would be even more cruel and decorate the car with all of it as she went to pick them up from school. LOL HA! Tawra




Tawra or Jill,

I thought when I hit the "Ask Tawra and Jill" button on your website it
would automatically ask you a question, but it didn't, so I tried the
"Contact Us" button. That didn't work, either, so I'll try this method.

Thanks for your newsletter; I enjoy it.

I especially appreciated your organizing ideas and tips--after I read
last week's newsletter about motivations toward getting organized, I
could hardly wait for the ideas this week. My question is about children
and their stuff. How do you organize it??? I have 6 children (13, 10,
6, 4, 2, 7 mos.), and homeschool, so we have "things" (toys, books, etc.)
for all those different ages, and hand them down from one to the other.
But how do you teach them to organize all their things??? The baby
sleeps in her own room which has much of the library and many of the
toys. The 2yo sleeps in our room, and the other 4 share a room. The two
oldest each have a large drawer for their "things" and do fairly well at
having them organized in there (better than I did having a "junk drawer"
when I was little!) But the other 2 end up tossing most of their stuff
under their (toddler size) beds. Any tips for helping them organize
would be helpful--here's the mom who "doesn't have a clue what to do with
the things but expects the kids to" and I realize that is unfair without
teaching them.

Thanks for any ideas!

Janell



What I did for my kids was just give them a basket that slid under the bed. Then they could just dump it all in there. When the basket started getting overfilled they would have to get rid of enough until it was able to go back under the bed. Of course I "helped" things disappear on occasion when they were gone. :-) (Don't worry only stuff I knew was trash or they didn't want anymore)

You could use those under the bed storage containers too. At that age I don't expect them to sort each thing. That's just crazy and it's just too much work for me to supervise it being done right. Keep it simple! Tawra




Just a comment on toys. Often my younger kids had a hard time purging toys. We issued a toy/game/stuffed animal limit (yes we counted even the McDonald's happy meal type and hot wheels) for their rooms. For the most part they were allowed 25 toys. That sounds like a lot but when we are dealing with little items and stuffed animals included in that number too this really was reasonable. Then the "leftover" or unpicked toys were sorted into two piles, those that were going to the Charitable Union for children who had no toys and those that could be put in one rubber tote for the basement. The rule with the tote was they could trade toys when they wanted to and if a toy was left for a year in the tote without being traded then they were automatically designated for donations. We have made a few exceptions over the years, like my teenage boys have a near complete original Brio train set their grandma helped them collect that they want to pass down to their kids which is stored. But these exceptions are only for really special items and are few and far between.

We tend to do this quarterly along with clothes purging. I have always let my kids donate not only the clothes that don't fit anymore but also things they don't care to wear. I found that no matter how nice an outfit was and how much the rest of us liked it, that if the individual child didn't like it, it was just cluttering up their drawers/closets.

Last is a tip I found out a few years ago. Most people have a Goodwill in town. While on a tour at a Michigan Goodwill distribution center, I found out that not only are they appreciative of nice used clothing but they also take ripped, torn, or just worn out items as well. What does not sell or is not fit for the sales floor either gets sent to third world countries or sold in bulk to textile recyclers. I was so impressed with their "green" outlook and how the more they recycle, the more people have the opportunity at their job skills training programs! Even buttons, zippers, snaps, and the like are removed and recycled!

Thanks for all the great newsletters!
June