Reply With QuoteI've never done it but considered throwing everything. I get what you mean about holidays and less fighting and less tidying up. We are also very busy when on holidays and the kids are exhausted maybe to exhausted to fight??
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Had anyone ever packed up every toy/book/piece of clothing their child owns and only left them with the bare essentials???
I'm seriously at the point of doing this. They will get one toy each, one book each, 3 sets of clothes each, one blanket and one pillow each.
I'm so over the constant fights over what to wear, cleaning up toys, picking up the cr@p around their rooms (blankets/pillows off the bed). I'm OVER it!
We just got back from our holiday yesterday and it was fantastic. No fights about anything. Bedtime was a breeze. Fast forward to bedtime last night and it all starts again.
Maybe I'm doing something wrong??? Maybe its my parenting??
I do t know. I'm just over the constant stress and fights.
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I've never done it but considered throwing everything. I get what you mean about holidays and less fighting and less tidying up. We are also very busy when on holidays and the kids are exhausted maybe to exhausted to fight??
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We weren't overly busy but they were tired at the end of each day. But really, they both are at daycare and neither have day sleeps so they are constantly doing stuff during the day so in theory should be tired. We get home and do h'wk, dinner, bath, quiet time/book time and bed. Same as every night.
If they have less stuff it means less materialistic things they have to fight over.
Both dh and I work in com services so our kids understand that others do t have things they do. My theory is pack up everything they have and they can live like the kids dh and I work with. Make them realise what they do have.
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I've done it. I didn't really get the result I was after though. The key with my kids was to find that one thing they valued above everything else and hold it to ransom. If they hadn't done their jobs I'd take it away and not give it back until they had done what was asked of them.
Culling the toys and clothes would be a good start. Maybe it's that they have too much stuff and don't know how to manage it.
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I've considered doing a big cull, but I've never got around to it.
I need to.
Maybe this weekend.
Not totally stripping everything back, but a serious cull. I reckon they play better with three things than they do with twenty. With twenty, they just flit from thing to thing. With three, there's more inquiry, more imagination, more interaction.
Books are different. We have 10 bookshelves, they're all full, they're all staying.
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I sick of them treating the books badly and sick of picking them up.so whilst I encourage reading I'm over it
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True ... I don't know how many rolls of sticky tape I've gone through ...
But I think they get lonely in the attic. I just can't do it.
But plenty of them are up might too high for the kids to reach
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I found my kids were better on holidays because a) there were TWO parents so there was more supervision and engagement and b) I wasn't trying to do cooking/washing/cleaning etc while also parenting. Life is simpler when there is more time and help.
I think packing away the books is a good idea and start a rotation system for the toys. Each week they get a new one out of the box.
Simplifying possessions is something I want to do too!
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My child scream is etched in my head. I swear I can still hear it and she's not even in the car with me now.
My 3 year old is sending me crazy! Every.single.thing.
I dropped her at dc with no shoes and hair not done because I just didn't want to argue anymore and couldn't cope with the screaming.
What the hell is wrong with my child!?!?
Mission: pack up toys starts tonight....
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