what if you live in a small space and your KID is a hoarder?

[justmama]

I am so NOT a hoarder. I could pretty much go down to bare bones in everything and be happy. My almost 10year old is a hoarder though. I tried letting her have one basket that she can keep "things" in to control the hoarding and hte mess and the "she's touching my stuff!!!!!! but it's special to me!!!!!!" I thought I was putting appropriate limits on it. But as you know, with a hoarder, there are no limits. They just keep adding on and keeping "things." She filled the basket and moved on to the top of her bookcase headboard and when that was overflowing, she moved on to inside the bookcase headboard and then to a basket near her bed. Now if she had her own bedroom, I'd let it go. I'd let it happen as long as laundry came out once in a while and it didn't smell in there. But she shares a room with her 2 sisters out of necessity. There's nowhere else she can have as a room, no extra rooms. Two bedrooms, 900sq ft and 4 of us. They have the big bedroom and she's got her own closet and the other two share the second closet in htere. How do I help her declutter without tears? Everytime we declutter it's when I've let it go and made excuses for so long that it's literally PILES everywhere and I'm just DONE with it. I can't STAND clutter! And I start chucking random bits of paper and broken stuff and she's in tears sobbing and I'm yelling. How do you declutter with a hoarder? How do you live at that happy medium in a small space where they can't' have a room just for their stuff? My problem is, it's a cyclical thing. She doesn't change and I don't change so something's gotta give. We do this purge with tears and then let it build and build and build thing like every month or two. She doesn't know how to let go and mess doesn't bother her and I don't want to hurt her feelings and kill her spirit but I can't stand the mess and it's exploding out everywhere and her sisters touch the stuff and she gets so angry and it causes fights.

[zoebird]

first, if she truly has a hoarding disorder, getting professional help is important.

But if she doesn't have hoarding disorder, then you have to start exploring with her the "whys" of these things.

There are two layers to this: first, her relationship to 'stuff'--why she holds onto it. and then second to this, you have to begin to teacher to evaluate what is important and what is less important and can be released.

we all have objects that look like trash but are actually valuable--pieces of paper that hold meaning to us such as old love letters. to another eye, it's just old paper. we also have objects that look like important objects that are not--for a child, it may be a stuffed toy, for an adult, some knick-knack on the shelf. to another eye, it looks more valuable, but for us, we may feel that it is relatively easy to release it.

so when she says "it's important to me!"

my first question would be why? what is important about it? not in an antagonistic way, but to genuinely ask about it.

in a similar process with a friend of mine (over 40 btw), she said that over and over about her "things." when i asked her why, she said "my grandmother gave it to me." now, you must understand, this was something like an egg carton or a broken chair.

and i said to her "i can understand that, what does it mean to you that your grandmother gave it to you?" and she eventually she said that she felt she would be "letting grandma down" to let that object go. And i asked her, "do you think that your grandmother would really want you to hold onto this? do you have anything else from her that you hold more valuable that can show your love and devotion to your grandmother?"

and she realized that what was more important than grandma's egg cartons, was the jewelry that came in them from grandma's will. the egg cartons could go, the jewelry was the important part. but because of her grief, because of her hoarding tendency, she also held onto the egg carton!

she realized then that she could let go of the carton, put the jewelry in a lovely box--which, btw, we had labled with a lovely label that said "Grandmother's Jewelry"--and that it was a much better momento for her of her grandmother, and it was also a much better emotional display for her.

and when her neices and nephews came over, she would show them "this is waht my grandmother wore, this is how she was" and she could continue and share her love, because the clutter was gone. we also put photos of her grandmother in there, cards that her grandmother had sent, and other small objects that she found particularly valuable. she was able to let go of the things that were less important to her, and keep and really "showcase" what was important to her. it was beautiful really.

Whether we are 10 or 80, we have a relationship to stuff. it is hard to let things go, and we often don't know why.

by going through this process with her, you are teaching her skills. skills of exploring her emotions and how they affect her choices in how she lives, and also how to value her things properly.

it's a great skill.

[FreeRangeMama]

I have a nearly-9 year old that is the same way. He holds on to things that would boggle the mind. A scrap of cardboard with Chinese characters on it, a balloon from a birthday party a year ago (still partially inflated), a broken toy that he loved when he was 2.

Realistically, reasoning with a child of this age on an issue this complex won't accomplish much. They don't know why it is important, but it makes them feel good/safe/complete/in control/etc. for some reason so they want to keep it. I think it will take many more years of life experience before they can articulate WHY.

I have by no means figured out the best way to deal with this, but I do have some strategies that work at least *some* of the time. We try to maintain a one in/one out policy for certain items. Cardboard creations for example. My ds has a collection of houses he made for various toys out of recycled cardboard boxes. They are made of cardboard and are set up as a village. He is only allowed to keep them in the basement (unfinished) and now that the town is established he must get rid of an old one before creating a new one. This helps him decide whether he is happy with what he has or if it is more valuable to him to create a new house. Same goes for other "treasures", one must be purged before a new one can take its place.

We are a family of 6 in a 3 bedroom house (less than 1000sqft) so rooms are also shared here. Each child has a full shelf to keep their personal belongings. What they own (aside from shared toys and a few larger things) must fit on the shelf. Again my hope is that this will help my hoarder discriminate what is worth keeping vs. what can be let go.

The last thing that probably makes the biggest difference for all the little things that accumulate is The Clutter Fairy. She is a fairy who comes to our house four times a year (equinoxes and solstices). We leave our clutter out for her and she takes it away in exchange for chocolate.....the more clutter we leave, the more chocolate she gives. It makes the giving fun and worthwhile for the kids! I spend time with each kid during the week prior going through all of their things so we can decide what can be let go and what needs to stay. Knowing that it has a purpose in going eases the pain of saying goodbye to things with emotional attachments. It is also a good way to clear out the things that accumulate despite my best intentions like birthday party favours, presents from friends, and the ever-present junk my mom brings from garage sales and thrift stores!

My own goal for my child is not to make him into a minimalist (it'll never happen!) but to teach him to discriminate between items that are worthy of joining his collection vs. an item that is better suited for the trash/recycling. He will likely always be a collector, I just don't want him to become a hoarder. I figure my job is to help him practice making decisions about what is worth keeping so that when he is grown and on his own he is able to make these decisions on his own.

[Crayfish]

I have suggestions, but they're based on experience with adult hoarders. And I should make it clear that I'm not a Hoarder Wrangling Professional. But:

Hoarders and their panic can be frightening. It's tempting to give in over and over. But that allows them to gain control, and I believe that that's not only bad for the rest of the family, it's bad for the hoarder.

It's already a problematic precedent for her to get a whole closet and her sisters to share the other. It's a worse precedent for her be able to intrude on their space with her "don't touch my stuff!" piles.

So my thoughts are:

- I'd give her a modest amount of hoarding space that is hers to fill entirely at her own discretion - of course, excluding things like food or stinky stuff. I'd make it a space that closes, so that there's no debate over whether it's full, and so that her sisters don't have to look at the hoard. And I wouldn't make it the same space where she keeps her clothes, because you need to be able to have some control over her clothing space.

So, for example, maybe you could get a small chest of drawers that fits in the bottom half of her closet. The top half of the closet is a hanging rack for her clothes, which you have the right to shuffle around and put away if you so choose, but the drawers in the chest of drawers are hers to fill as she wishes.

- I'd give her a clear set of rights and non-rights. She has the right to fill those drawers precisely as she wishes, and no one will mess with them. If she chooses to fill them with grocery store receipts and get rid of perfectly good Barbie dolls, that's her choice.

She does _not_ have the right to put her stuff anywhere else. She does _not_ have the right to demand that her stuff remain undisturbed if she does put it somewhere else. Her area of control is very specific and limited, but in that area, it is near absolute.

- And she can _never_ exceed the space in those drawers. Not by one slip of paper. Ever. So I wouldn't wait months to enforce her space, I would do it Every Single Day, if necessary. If she leaves stuff out of those drawers, you will move it. It's up to do what you do with it - maybe she has to come to you to request it back, and put it in the drawers if it fits? Maybe you just throw it away?

- This, of course, doesn't leave her a place to work with her stuff and feel that she has control over it. I doubt that each of the three girls has their own desk? And if they share one, she shouldn't be allowed to demand that her stuff be totally undisturbed, and she probably would demand it, and that would get ugly.

So maybe a lap desk that she uses on her bed (you could get one for each of the three girls)? But I'd require that she put everything away at night, leaving nothing on the bed or on any other surface. You could require that of all three girls, to avoid singing her out more than necessary.

-----

There will be tears. There will be fights. You're simply not going to talk her into getting rid of stuff voluntarily. But I think that constant, iron-fist enforcement will be less hard on everyone in the end, than intermittent purges.

And I would consider professional help. Hoarding is a genuine issue. It often links up with problems with setting priorities, and decision-making, and perfectionism, and an excessive fear of mistakes, and black-and-white thinking, and other issues that, if they're present, are definitely something to work on. I suspect that if more hoarders got help early, there would be far fewer adult hoarders.

Crayfish

[zoebird]

i agree with FRM that some children may not be able to understand why, other than that it makes them feel safe, etc. but, i believe that many children are deeply in touch with their emotions, even if they can't label them, and they are able to communicate how they feel about various things when the questions are asked in a kind, open way.

for my own part, we started purging in my household as young as age 6. by 9, i was nearly an expert at it, and that's what started my path to minimalism (that wasn't really fulfilled until recently--so that's a long time, 25 yrs for me to truly see it through). i was in a place by age 10 where i didn't want to bring things in that i didn't truly want. of course, that was hard because people love to give gifts and surprises to kids, and i had an issue with asking for waht i really wanted.

now, i really really really love the idea of the Clutter Fairy, and connecting that with the seasons via equinoxes, and also the idea of exchange like the Tooth Fairy does. that just seems like fun! i might just do that for fun!

[kittywitty]

I just want to say I totally understand. We live in a smallish house for our family size (moved from 700-900 feet to 1800) and two of my kids are major packrats. They will not get rid of anything-not emotional but they "need" everything which is a real problem when no one can get through their rooms to the bathroom/closet (weird house setup), or have to share space and the "stuff" creeps in.

[umsami]

Originally Posted by FreeRangeMama

The last thing that probably makes the biggest difference for all the little things that accumulate is The Clutter Fairy. She is a fairy who comes to our house four times a year (equinoxes and solstices). We leave our clutter out for her and she takes it away in exchange for chocolate.....the more clutter we leave, the more chocolate she gives. It makes the giving fun and worthwhile for the kids! I spend time with each kid during the week prior going through all of their things so we can decide what can be let go and what needs to stay. Knowing that it has a purpose in going eases the pain of saying goodbye to things with emotional attachments. It is also a good way to clear out the things that accumulate despite my best intentions like birthday party favours, presents from friends, and the ever-present junk my mom brings from garage sales and thrift stores!

I absolutely this. I'm going to have to ask the Clutter Fairy if she'll visit us too. (I love that she leaves chocolate. What an awesome fairy!)

[justmama]

Wanted to jump back in here and thank all the people who took the tiime to write out such a detailed thoughtful response and commiserate with those in the same boat as I am. As an update, I have taken the responses to heart and have given her a shelf above her bed with 2 baskets that she is allowed to fill but not overflow. I took the rights and responsibilities and retyped them into appropriate wording for her and handed them to her to read and review when I gave her the shelf and baskets. She is trying to adhere to the rules. She is in the process of being diagnosed with ADHD right now and her psych has been notified of her issues with hoarding and I'm not sure of what he thinks of it but he's said he will mention it and try to get some feedback on it from her in the next session. So hopefully it's just something that she's trying to control in her life since she's so overwhelmed with school and friends and me nagging about homework and chores and when her ADHD is in control, her hoarding will be more in control. I'm hoping that's her control coping mechanism. Things have really come to a head at school so she may be a little overwhelmed lately.

But thanks all for the kids. They are defnitely working so far. I'm feeling a lot better about the kids' room. Going to surprise them tomorrow when they get home from their dad's house with some special decal stickers on their walls to spruce the place up a bit.

[MsBirdie]

My DD liked hoarding projects and crafts she had made. We now take digital pictures of them and store them in a file for her to look at when she wants. That has worked really well for us. I have heard of some moms making the pics into books for the kids.