Hello, and welcome to episode number 98, tackling hoarding habits in kids. So today on the podcast, I'm going to help you make sense of hoarding in children and differentiate between what might be hoarding behaviors versus a child who's maybe just a bit messy. Or perhaps a child who collects and has lots of collections, but perhaps just not very well organized.
I'm going to help you make sense of what actually meets the description of hoarding behaviors. What to do if your child does meet those identifiers for having a hoarding problem and how you as a parent can help support your child in their organization of their collections, or perhaps intervening early on if your child does indeed seem to have some hoarding tendencies before it maybe gets to be a really significant problem.
So when we think about hoarding, oftentimes we think about adults and really extreme cases of hoarding. Perhaps you've watched the TV show by the name Hoarders. I know I have. It's fascinating. It is alarming. It is interesting, particularly when you see how much of it is really about psychological problems.
Well, there can be some early signs of hoarding behaviors in children that I want to bring to light and help make sense of. So you can kind of think about your own children who might be a bit messy or disorganized or perhaps struggling with some hoarding tendencies so you can take action sooner rather than later and I'm going to help you figure out what to do.
So when we think about hoarding in childhood, you might picture in your mind rooms filled With various items that make it difficult to function well, even walk around a room or find a space in a bed to sleep or be able to use a table or desk in a room for homework or studying or projects. When you have a room that your child lives in or space they live in that looks like that, no doubt you're concerned and probably a bit frustrated as well.
Well, it's important to differentiate, as I said, between what is just messiness and a lack of organization and what might actually be hoarding tendencies. It is different. And here's how you can make that differentiation for yourself. I utilized a great resource. I will put a link in the show notes, and it was an article that I found through the Child Mind Institute, which had great help in identifying these key factors.
The first thing you need to do is look for and identify the physical indicators of hoarding behavior. One of the experts that was used in this article is a clinical psychologist named Jerry Bubrick, and he is through the Child Mind Institute. And he has four questions that he asks his clients who are children and tweens and teens who struggle with hoarding.
And these are his questions that he uses with his clients to help them identify if this is
hoarding or just messiness So first, the four questions, can you see the floor in your room and you get clean clothes out of your closet, or is it so packed with stuff that you can't get in there? Can you sleep in your bed or is your bed temporary storage for everything?
And then the fourth question, can you do your homework at your desk or is your desk covered with all kinds of stuff? And if your child doesn't have homework, the same question could be asked, just. Is your desk or the table in your room covered with things so you can't sit there and work at your desk surface on, you know, art projects, whatever you might want to do.
So that's the first thing to do is to look at those four questions. Ask yourself those questions about your child's space, or if you're going to kind of assess alongside your child, those are the four questions you want to start off with. Secondly, you need to assess your child's emotional attachment to their possessions.
So the difference between a child who might just have an issue with clutter and disorganization is that those four questions, perhaps the answer is yes, yes, yes, yes, yes to all four of them. But then the answer to this next set of kind of Wonderings is perhaps no. And then it has to do with assessing for your child's emotional attachment to their possessions.
So does your child experience a lot of distress when they're forced to discard items that basically have no use? They're just random garbage or things that they've picked up off the street. Kids who are just kind of. Disorganized or messy, they do not typically get very upset if somebody moves things around or kind of just does a decluttering session and throws away items.
They don't typically get upset. They'll be like, Oh yeah, thanks for cleaning up my mess, mom and dad or whatever, but they would not get upset. A child who really does struggle with hoarding tendencies. It does get emotional distress. In fact, they can have big emotional reactions to adult interventions, such as crying tantrums, even acts of aggression.
So if your child tends to just freak out, if you've gone to clean up, declutter, or throw away some things that you assess to be useless, like garbage, your child really freaks out, that's a higher chance that they likely do have habits that you'd associate with hoarding tendencies. The third thing you need to do is you need to look for patterns of accumulation, meaning does your child have a habit of just picking up random items from the street?
Things that don't have a lot of use. Okay, maybe picking up coins. That's useful, right? Because those coins could get collected and used as money, of course. But are they picking up sticks and acorns and bottle caps and rocks and just lots of stuff for kind of no apparent reason? Another thing to look for in terms of patterns of accumulation is kind of this concept that your child has in terms of here for now, just putting these randomly collected items into piles and piles of these objects can be found kind of around the home.
They want to see what they have, but there's not really any rhyme or reason or way in which they can Collect and keep track of these items. They just want to have them here for now and then worry about what to do with them later. But the concept of, oh, putting things in a place to actually grow a collection kind of isn't really there, nor is the idea that putting things out of sight, like in a drawer, Or a box, if it's out of sight, that causes distress because if they don't see it, they don't know it's there, or they worry that these things will feel lonely, almost as if they have feelings, which brings me to the fourth thing that you want to assess for, which is a psychological attachment to possessions.
There's almost this underlying belief that a child who struggles with hoarding has that these objects have actual feelings. The kids who have hoarding tendencies or habits. It's much deeper than just a thing if they are going to get rid of, or somebody get to rid of an object for the child, it feels almost like a great loss or a death for the object to be disposed of.
Similar and connected to this idea in terms of the psychological attachment is oftentimes it may not be that they believe that this object or it feels like this object has feelings might be the association that they have with. The object, and perhaps a cherished memory. So perhaps your child, oh, went to the arcade for their birthday and invited a bunch of friends.
It was really fun. And they used a napkin to wipe their face that had the name of the arcade on it. And they It's stuck that in their pocket and now they've gotten home and they're like, Oh, I want to save that because I have this great memory of that birthday party, but really it's just a napkin with a sphere of pizza grease on it.
Doesn't really have a use, but if they get rid of that napkin, it feels like they're losing the memory. And so they want to hold onto things that are useless or trash. Because of that connection to the memory. So those are kind of the four categories that you want to use as kind of your assessment. Of if there might be some signs or symptoms of hoarding in your children.
So now let's look at kind of differentiating between is it hoarding or maybe collecting. It's important to note that collecting is a really common behavior in kids and it's positive. It has, there's positive aspects to collecting things in terms of child development. The developmental benefits of collecting things.
Things like stickers or rocks or playing cards, things like Pokemon or perhaps stuffed animals or little figurines. Benefits of this is it helps kids learn to categorize items. It sometimes helps them develop an expertise in a subject like, Oh my gosh, they're really into collecting Pokemon cards and they start to learn all about the game and the power of different cards and they become experts at this particular area of interest.
Similarly, gosh, sometimes kids love collecting rocks and minerals and then learning what type of rock or mineral the item is, and then being able to categorize it. by the type of rock or mineral it is. So it helps them learn to categorize and also develop an expertise, which both are really positive.
Also, it can help children practice organizational skills. So if you're categorizing things, then you're also developing skills that are That have to do with organization. Also, it can help children develop a sense of control and mastery over their collections, and it also can help them build an identity.
I am a person who's super into rocks and minerals, and it's part of who I am. I'm really into science. It's part of my identity. So it can sometimes help them build an identity and connect with others who might share that, same similar interest. The other positive aspect of collecting in terms of child development is that it can develop a sense of pride and higher self esteem in children when they become an expert in a subject and they are feeling like they're getting this level of mastery.
They can feel a lot of pride in sharing these collections with others, connecting it with others who share similar interests, and also talking about kind of being the expert in a certain subject. When and sharing what they're learning about their collections or the things that they're learning about this area of interest in the collection that is going with it.
In contrast to a child who maybe has hoarding behaviors, there's a lack of organization and there's a discomfort in sharing about these things. Items with others, because it kind of feels like shame inducing when they take a look at all this clutter and lack of organization, they're just picking up random things and just piling them all around their, room, or maybe spilling out into the other living areas of your family's home.
And that is starting to create a sense of shame. And so there's this. There is not organization. There's not this pride in sharing of these items that have been accumulated. There's also accumulation of items that don't really have a value associated with them. It's just really random. Oftentimes, like I said, it should be probably be recycled or thrown out.
And there's also a lack of understanding or even acknowledgement regarding the hoarding behaviors. So switching over now and talking about. The development and onset of hoarding behaviors. There can sometimes be early signs of hoarding like behaviors in very young children, preschool age children.
This can happen sometimes because of Parenting or teaching tactics, particularly ones that focus a lot on forced sharing. I oftentimes encourage parents not to force kids to share items all the time. Certain things like there's just one swing at the park. Yes, we do have to set a time limit and give other people a turn, but perhaps you have a child and the sibling wants to play with a toy that they're playing with just because they saw it.
And a lot of times parents think, Oh, I just have to kind of. You know, force my child to share because it's not fair them to get to play with a toy when the other kid wants to play with it. I discourage this type of forced sharing because it actually encourages hoarding behaviors. Instead, teach the other child either to Playmate or their sibling to wait until the other child is done using that item or toy.
And then they learn to kind of wait that delayed gratification, which is helpful. And the child doesn't feel this sense of I have to hold onto it with a vice grip. Otherwise, I'm going to lose it. Therefore, I'm going to hold onto lots of things, even if I'm not playing with them, just because I don't want to be forced to share.
But beyond that, early signs of hoarding behaviors often come alongside co morbid conditions. , young children around the age of six or seven, a lot of times will start showing signs of OCD or other anxiety related disorders. And Hoarding oftentimes goes hand in hand with OCD or anxiety disorders.
Again, around the age six or seven. So you're typically going to see this alongside other conditions, not in isolation for younger children. Over the age of seven. So when you have tweens or teens, you will sometimes see this occurrence of hoarding behaviors developing in isolation, not in connection with other comorbid conditions.
So that's more typical of tweens or teens, older children developing just hoarding behaviors, not comorbid behaviors. Also, these behaviors can develop After following some type of a traumatic event or loss, so it can be associated with trauma. Again, that would be considered like a comorbid condition.
Another thing that can impact the development or onset of hoarding behaviors is familial influences, meaning that parents, adults who have hoarding behaviors, oftentimes have children who have hoarding behaviors. So you see these, existing within family systems, even within relatives. So if you kind of know that, Oh gosh, I have these tendencies myself, then seeing them and your child should not be a great shock, but perhaps maybe your.
Co parent or even other extended family members have these tendencies and now you're seeing it in your child, recognizing that it could be tied to a family trait, almost like a genetic marker for it is also something that is worth noting if you're seeing this in your child. So if this is the case, it is important to recognize that if it is a parent who has the hoarding tendencies, that it is going to be essential when we go to talk about treatment, that the parent is receiving treatment in conjunction with their child receiving treatment.
You cannot just isolate and seek out treatment and therapies for children. If the parent is not also receiving therapies and treatment for their own hoarding behaviors. So now segwaying and talking about treatment approaches. So first I'm going to talk about in the more significant cases, perhaps when there is already some associated comorbidities, or it feels like it is a really more extreme case of Hoarding behaviors.
It's probably going to be necessary to bring in interventions in the way of therapy. There was a particular type of therapy called ERP exposure with response prevention therapy. That is kind of the go to most beneficial form of therapy for kids who have hoarding tendencies, particularly if it is associated with OCD or anxiety disorders.
To the way in which ERP works is children bring in things that they've been saving, or even if it's just been collected that day in their pockets, when they arrive at therapy, that therapist will help them identify on a scale of zero to 10, how much they feel they need to keep these items. And so once they identify that on a scale, beginning with whatever item the child identified being kind of the least cherished, the therapist will help them work towards letting them go and will continually to gradually expose them to discarding possessions.
Sometimes the therapist will just say, okay, you're just going to leave that item here with me for the week and see how it feels to be separated. We're not going to throw it out. You can get it back next week. If you feel you still need it. Okay. But right now we're just going to leave it here in my office.
And then when the child returns, they can assess, okay, where are you now on the scale of zero to 10 regarding this item and decide if they're ready to let it go, or if they need to continue to have these repeated exposures to the items in the process of letting them go. Sometimes it can be helpful to include reward systems that are introduced to reinforce progress around letting things go.
And this is all part of what this ERP therapy is like. It's also important when it comes to this treatment approach to elements of critical thinking about , the possessions. So helping kids learn to distinguish between, do you need this or do you want this? For kids who have hoarding tendencies, It can be kind of a blurred lined.
It feels like they need it when really they recognize that actually no, it's just something I want. I don't actually need it, but learning to differentiate between need and want is part of them learning to let go of things that they recognize actually, it's just something I wanted to pick up. I don't actually need it.
Also this critical thinking can be used in assessing space limitations when it comes to these acquisitions. Asking kids, things like, do you have space for this item? And if not, we don't need to get it, or we can let it go, or if you still want to get this item, or if you want to keep this item, then we need to get rid of something else before reintroducing or introducing this item into your living space.
So it's kind of helping a child assess for need versus wants and also do they have space for these items to be able to keep them? It's really important that this therapeutic approach includes a lack of judgment in this therapeutic environment. Therapists will not say, you actually don't need this.
Or, you know, it's bad that you've created this chaos in your living environment. There's no shaming involved, no dismissing attitudes. If a child says, I need this. And it's a paper clip that they picked up on the side of the road. And they have plenty of paper clips already at home. The therapist would not dismiss it and say, no, you don't, you have plenty at home.
So that is avoided a hundred percent because this is not really a rational thing we're dealing with here. So we do not shame, attitude or an opinion that a child might have about these items. It is also important that the therapist is working on the existence of shame for the person, unpacking that, letting that feeling be.
Expressed and talked about so it's not just carried around internally for the child. Now I'm going to talk about parent involvement and support when it comes to tackling these hoarding behaviors in children, and I'm going to talk about it through my own personal experience. My family, there's only one person in our family who is an expert at organization.
That is my third born. She just finds a lot of peace and actually a lot of pleasure. It's one of her go to favorite things to do to feel a sense of calm is to organize her room. Everything has its place and she just loves the act of organization for the rest of us in our family. It's a bit more of a struggle for different reasons.
To different degrees, , some people have more of an issue with letting go of things that are associated with memories. Other people don't have any problem with that. It's just feels overwhelming to organize spaces. Well, for my youngest, she is the one who has shown the most signs of what you might say sounds like, or looks like hoarding tendencies.
And it has been something that has been on my mind for some time and more recently I decided to intervene and really approach this challenge with my youngest in a way that I could kind of help her learn to identify and acknowledge the problems where they do exist. How to learn to let go of items to feel tremendous success and pride in that process and also help her set up some systems so that she can keep her collections organized and they don't reach the level of meeting to be on a TV show someday called orders.
So my youngest has the smallest room in the house. It is tiny. Tiny probably was at one point in time used as a closet. We have an old home, teeny tiny rooms. Her room is the smallest. So we've had to be kind of creative. She has a loft bed. She has, you know, a dresser below her loft bed is a Desk, she has a little chair and then she has kind of an old school closet that doesn't have a ton of space for hanging up clothes.
It does have some shelves, but it's weird and oddly kind of designed where the shelves are behind where the clothes hang. So that kind of made those shelves useless. And it's just tough for me personally, I'm not great at organizational systems. So it always kind of just felt overwhelming. And I kind of just created systems of Baskets where all the stuff would just kind of get thrown and lost and disappear.
And my daughter continued to collect items and I was not convinced that these were true collections. To me, a lot of it did feel like junk, trash, things that did not need to stick around. So when it comes to parental involvement in support, You are vitally important parents in intervening and supporting your child before it reaches a level where it might require therapeutic interventions.
And that was kind of where I was feeling like I needed to step up and help my youngest with her tiny room with lots of stuff in it. So, Kind of talking through those four questions that I talked through in the beginning. I helped my child kind of look and assess the situation in her room. Can you see the floor in your room?
Well, yes, at times, but mainly because of adult intervention once a week for purposes of cleaning. Things got picked up off the floor, sometimes with her help, sometimes just getting it done quickly because, oh, the floor needed to be mopped and the things needed to be gone and put away without her being involved.
As much as it's always my goal to involve my kids in cleaning up their own messes, it doesn't always happen. Second question, can you get clean clothes out of your closet or is it too packed full of stuff? Well, yes, once again, things could get out of the closet mainly because of adult intervention.
However, there definitely were clothes in there that didn't fit or were stained or ripped that easily could have gotten rid of. That's not an issue for my daughter. She doesn't really care about holding on to clothes. It's more an issue of coming up with a time to actually go through, call, and get rid of things.
So. That wasn't as much of an issue for her. Now gets to question three. Can you sleep in your bed or is your bed temporary storage for everything? For my daughter, sleeping in her bed was becoming problematic. Thankfully, she's tiny and little and could carve out a tiny bit of space, but her bed was covered with stuffies.
And as I came to find out when I climbed up her ladder, because it's a loft bed. I not only found all of her stuffies, but she would bring up so many things, toys, books, writing implements, drawing paper, and food bags all up there reaching unhygienic levels. It was a problem. Now my daughter didn't see it as a problem.
And again, remember that. Does your child have the ability to identify this as a problem? My daughter was like, I like it this way. For her, not a problem. It was not something that she claimed to really care about. More on that in a minute though. The last question, can you do your homework or any work at your desk or is it covered with all kinds of stuff?
No, my daughter, the desk, any flat surface in her room was always covered with random papers, projects she was in the middle of. All of these random found items that she was quote unquote collecting, but again, it wasn't really serving a purpose. It was just junk, clutter and trash at times, sometimes partially eaten food.
It was getting epic levels. So the next thing that we had to do after kind of taking a look and assessing the physical space was figuring out if it seemed like a problem for my child. Like I said, when I brought it up and we were kind of going through and assessing the space, she said, I don't see a problem.
I like it this way. So she didn't see an issue again, warning, warning, a sign that a child has a hoarding issue if they don't identify the problem. But I think that was her first response. The reality was there was a level in which she was definitely feeling uncomfortable because she sometimes we're saying, and I don't have people, I don't want to have a play date in my room.
My room is too messy. So she was a bit embarrassed about the state of her room. The so that she didn't want people in there. If I came into her room, she would sometimes say like, Oh no, no, let's, let's go someplace else. Because she I'm sure was not wanting me to address the mess in her room. And I, not ashamed to admit that I sometimes would say comments.
I'm human. I sometimes would say, my gosh, your room is chaos and it's Messy and unhygienic and we kind of move to a level of being more shaming in my approach. And that is not effective. And I do not encourage you to do follow my own poor mistake. That was before I took this more intentional approach.
And the other thing was sometimes I would move things around and she would get panicked. You're going to throw out something that I care about, and she would have a more heightened response, not to the level of full on tantrums or aggression, but she would get panic. You're going to throw out something I care about.
I don't trust you to organize things in my room because you're not going to know what to keep or get rid of. So there was this heightened level of anxiety surrounding me getting rid of items in her room. So I knew intervention was really important. And here's how we approached it. The first thing I did was I assessed her room and identified.
The item that seemed to be taking up the most space or the type of item that seemed to be taking up the most space. So this is the first thing I would encourage you to do as well. Look at your child's space. What seems to be the biggest sucker of space or area in which there seems to be a lot of it.
And if we were able to tackle this one item, we would be on the road towards coming out from this. hoarding issue. Once you identify that it for that item for my child, it was definitely her collection of stuffies. It was beyond belief, largely because she's the youngest of four kids. And as her older siblings have gone through their own decluttering processes and all of their stuffies were ready to be given away, they would oftentimes offer them or say, Hey, take a look.
Do you want any of these? And she would say yes. And she would keep them all because she loved having the most. out of control collection of stuffies. And her favorite thing to ask for for all holidays and birthdays were stuffies. So people would just keep giving them to her. So the collection was getting out of control.
So the first thing, identify the type of item that you want to tackle first. Step two, Take these items and move them out of the room to not get rid of them. Just move them out of the room and put them all on display in another space. And this is what I did. I collected every single one of the stuffies from on top of our loft bed, from all of the baskets and trunks and piles all over her room.
And I laid them all out in our living room. And they were not able to fit on one bed. Large three person couch. They had to be put on multiple couches, but I displayed every single item so that they could be seen in pure view. And I did this without my daughter, because if I had said, Hey, we're going to go through, look at your stuffies and decide to get rid of some of them.
No way. There would be a lot of emotional distress. So I took every single item and I displayed all of them. Then I invited her into the living room to take a look and see. So this is step three, have your child look at their collection of whatever it is in a new space. That is not their room, their bed, wherever you've collected these items from and invite them to take a look at it.
And ask them, what do you think about all of this? Now, my child's reaction when she saw this was, it's about what I thought I had. I was bowled over. I could not believe this child had, I didn't even dare count them all. I should have, but I did take pictures of them and I will share these pictures in this episode, perhaps in the social media.
Perhaps in the show notes or on my, art for this episode, I will give you a glimpse into what this looked like. It was epic. So she took a look. She's like, yeah, that's about what I, thought I had. The next thing that you're going to do is you're going to talk about the reason why you are taking a look at these items and considering.
The need versus want of these items. I identify the need to clean thoroughly my daughter's room. We couldn't really clean it very thoroughly because of all of the stuffed animals on her bed, all around the room. And so I said, is this a real issue? We do need to be able to clean because we've got lots of allergies and some asthma in our family.
And we know that can be really aggravated by dust and dust mites. And. It's getting so hard to sleep in your bed that feels uncomfortable. And so it's difficult to even utilize your space. Plus you want to be able to have space to be able to lay on the floor and do a project, but it's taken up by all these stuffies.
So we need to take a look at what we have here and figure out if it's too much and what we need to perhaps consider, donating or getting rid of. Now, as soon as you mention to a child that you are going to be perhaps getting rid of some of this, the panic will ensue. So the next step is to not push, but to empower your child to get rid of, reduce the amount of donate, whatever the item is, and may not, may not be the same solution to what you're going to do with the items that they're willing to part with, but you do not say, you need to get rid of this.
You instead say the opposite. And this is what I did with my child. I said, she got the panic in her eye and she was like, I'm not going to have any of this. And I said, guess what? You do not have to give away a single one of these items, but I do want you to look at them and make a decision about every single item, if you want to keep it.
And why you want to keep it, or if you are ready to get rid of it, this is where you introduce this concept of, do you need it or do you want it? Well, when it comes to stuffed animals, you know, nothing truly is a need on the deepest level. But again, remember, we're not being judgmental here. Your child may feel a need to keep a stuffed animal that has something to do with their association with a stuffed animal, or perhaps it fits into a collection.
My daughter had, Lot of foxes. Foxes were for a long time, still are one of her favorite animals, but it was her top favorite animal. So she has lots of stuffed foxes. She also has a large collection of orca whale stuffies. So for her, within her massive amount of stuffed animals, she actually had Collections that fit into categories.
And so for her, it was, those would fit into more of her need. I need my collection of Fox stuffies. I need my collection of Orca whales. She calls them a family. They need to stay together. So again, you're asking your child to identify need versus want. Also invite your child to consider when this is applicable, who might benefit from their generosity.
If they are willing to part with items, if you have a child over the age of seven or you're real sensitive child, who's maybe between the ages of seven to nine, their ability to keep multiple perspectives in mind at the same time, we call this mixed feelings or integrative functioning, , is possible. So you're going to appeal to their empathetic side.
They can Want to give something, but also feel sad about doing it the same time. That is a more mature level of development. If your child is showing indications that they can do that, this can be helpful to throw into the pot to mix together in terms of what they're considering when they're considering parting ways, could another child benefit from your generosity?
Are there children that do not have a single stuffed animal in the example I'm using here who might love. Having one of these stuffies of yours, consider donating it. So help your child then go through, consider need versus want. And also consider, do you have space? Now my daughter would argue, of course I have space.
You've got this for my room. They fit before, but I wanted to identify my, for my child, the need to be able to clean and that we were not being able to effectively clean in her room with the amount of stuffies we had. So we did have kind of like. Keep donate or an area that we delineated when she was sorting that was saved, but doesn't have to be in my room.
So we did have a bin. One bin that was saved, but it can go up in the attic or can go in another space. I don't need to have it in my room. Kind of the space between, Donating and giving away and keeping in your room. So your child is assessing for, do they have space for it? And if they do, does it go into the back into the room pile or does it go into the save it, but I don't need to see it pile or does it get donated?
And then you want to allow time and do not pressure your child so that they can go through the process of grieving. It sounds dramatic, but it is. Anytime you're parting ways with an item, particularly if it's associated with a memory, your child is going to need to feel that sadness. And that can be really hard for kids, particularly kids who are very sensitive.
So give your child time to look at each of the items and decide. And if they're going to give it away, give them time to say goodbye to them. And this is the perfect segue for me to introduce a audio clip of my youngest doing this. You're going to hear here, my daughter saying goodbye to a little stuffy hedgehog, which had a face mask.
This was a stuffy that I gave to her when she got COVID early on during the pandemic. It was kind of something I saw at the local drug store. I thought it was kind of cute and I wanted her to feel better about having to wear a face mask. So I bought her this stuffy and I wasn't sure if she'd want to get rid of that or not.
But what you'll hear here is not only her identifying how hard it is But that she has chosen to part with the stuffy and her process of saying goodbye to her stuffy. So listen in.
So I wanted to share that. I am letting you listen to that with my daughter's permission. I was observing just how powerful this experience was for her. And what an incredible job she was doing at A really hard thing, letting go of her beloved stuffies. She took a lot of pride and identity in her massive stuffy collection.
So this was really, really challenging for her. And initially her first thought was not getting rid of a single one. And then again, as soon as I took the pressure off and I said, you don't have to get rid of any that you don't want to get rid of. She was open to the idea. And then once she started doing it, it started fueling the sense of, I can do hard things.
And actually this feels kind of good. And she kind of enjoyed the process, even though it evoked some sadness in her. She realized it was survivable and there was something that actually kind of came with it, the sense of accomplishment. And so as she was adding to the giveaway bags, we ended up people with four enormous garbage bags.
Full of her stuffies that she was donating for. I would have been thrilled with one for, we also ended up with a bin of the kind of want to save for now, but don't need it back in my room and greatly reduced the amount of stuffies that we had. , so once you get through this process and you celebrate the courage that it took for your child to part with their items, the next thing you want to do is you want to Create a new way in which you're going to organize or display the items that your child keeps.
Okay, I'm going to talk about creating a new way to display or organize your child's items in a second, but I just want to kind of throw in here as I'm talking about how parents can intervene. It is. Important not to go overboard when your child has success with one area. Pause, do not push on and go through every single thing they have in their tire room.
I admit to doing this. And pretty soon I was pretty frustrated and my daughter was pretty frustrated. So I do not encourage doing that. I would suggest instead doing it in stages and hopefully not waiting so long to intervene that this becomes this Month long project, but if so, that's okay. Just pick a category of items at a time.
Maybe one time it's a huge collection of stuffies. Next time we're going to go through all of their books. Next time you're going to go through their art supplies. Next time you're going to go through their hair accessories, whatever it might be. Do one at a time, choose a category at a time and don't try to do too much, but follow the same system that I have identified as my daughter.
And I continue to work through the different categories in her space What I would do would I would take, okay, let's say all of the art supplies. I put all of them into a basket. And took it again out of her room and space. And then we worked together to categorize, we worked together to identify what things could be tossed out or donated.
And then we introduced the new organizational systems to organize those items. So when it came to art supplies, I have lots of clear containers to be able to put all the crayons, all the markers, all the pencils, and so on.
So now I'm going to segue into kind of my generalized tips to keep your kids collections organized and decrease hoarding habits. So this is kind of once we got through the, process of getting rid of items and identifying what items we're keeping, we needed to come up with structures to try and decrease the chance of this continuing to happen.
And let me tell you, It's working, we are a few months past our big overhaul of my daughter's collections and our interventions of our hoarding tendencies and these systems are still in place and still helping us. So the first tip is you need to establish Clear organizational system. So work with your child to figure out a system that will work for them and their preferences.
So my daughter likes to see absolutely everything she has. So for us, we had to come up with a system that included clear boxes, clear bins. So she could see everything that she had. We reorganized her. Her closet so that we could access the shelves that were blocked with her clothes. We moved where we kept her clothes so that now the shelves could be used to display all of her items, her collections.
Some of it was things that were useful, like again, her art supplies. And some of it was just her collection of rocks, her collection of beads, her collection of Pokemon cards, but keeping them all in clear. Easy to see systems. You of course also can use labels for items, particularly if it's not in a clear box.
Some kids prefer that. My third born is my super well organized child. She prefers things out of sight and labeled so that she can, find things where they are, but doesn't have to look at them because she prefers a more clean area with things not always out and on display. You also want to make sure that whatever system you set up is easy for your child to be able to access them independently.
So not on super high shelves where your child is going to have to climb up on something, God forbid, knock over a shelf or something that would be a major emergency. Instead find a way that you can organize their system in a way that they can access them and continue to put things where they belong.
Like I said, flare containers work really well, particularly for kids who struggle a bit with organization again, out of sight, out of mind can be really tricky for these kids. So keeping things in clear bins can be really helpful. I found so many of the things I used for my daughter system at the dollar store.
So that does not have to be an expensive venture. You can also just repurpose simple food storage containers, which can be super cheap. Again, they can be clear, easy to see what you have that can be really, really helpful for our kids. The second tip set limits. So help your child recognize, okay, you have this basket here.
You can keep as many of the certain type of item that can fit into this basket. So you have to make a choice about what you're going to keep or get rid of, but it has to fit in this space right here. It's okay to have a collection of stickers, but only stickers that can fit inside this. Finder this box, whatever it is, once it goes beyond this, we cannot buy any more stickers until you find a use for them.
That's just an example of a way that you could set a limit. You also can set a limit. That sounds like, okay, you can get a new item, but then one has to be given away. So, you know, for those who are also addicted to stuffies, all right, you can get a new stuffy as long as you will give one away. That could be a great way to set a limit.
Number three, have regular decluttering sessions. Do not wait too long. Like I did, where you have so many different collections and piles in a degree of disorder, which has reached epic proportions. So do regular decluttering sessions. Even when your child has a system set up. Like my child does, we still are on a weekly basis.
Now going looking what doesn't have a place yet. Do we need to keep it? If so, where does it go? If it doesn't have a place, it doesn't get kept. That can be really, really helpful for kids. Also, again, continue working on those critical thinking and decision making skills. Help your child evaluate. Is this a need or a want?
Are we going to keep or donate or discard? Do you have a friend that would appreciate this if you give it to them? So kind of drop on your child's generosity. And how they make decisions about what they're going to keep, what they're going to give away and again, help them determine need versus want usefulness, sentimental value, and the space constraints of their living environments.
The next thing you want to do tip five is encourage responsible ownership. You need to teach your child the importance of taking care of their positions of their collections as part of being responsible owner. And that includes keeping their collections neat, organized, and in good condition. Tip six, lead by example.
You need to be a good role model for your children in demonstrating good organizational habits, responsible ownership of your belongings, the ability to give away things that you might have a sentimental connection to, but have identified you don't really need. Maybe take a picture of it and let it go.
Identify model these same behaviors for your child and model it in the shared spaces around your home. Having household organization That will model what a tidy living space looks like for your child. Tip number seven, celebrate progress, acknowledge and celebrate your child's efforts in their process of keeping their collections well organized.
Figure out ways to celebrate, perhaps introduce some positive reinforcements that can continue to motivate your child to continue these positive. Good habits of organization and keeping collections. And then tip eight, be patient and supporting. Understand that it can be really challenging to reverse some of these hoarding behaviors.
So it's going to take some time and some patience. If your child is not willing to let go of a single item that you think, gosh, I really wish they could. That's okay. Maybe that's not the right item to tackle. Maybe that could be the place where your child could make some decisions. Okay. We're going to work on some of the clutter in your room.
Identify item category that you want to tackle today. Is it art supplies? Is it hair accessories? Call up your child help to identify the things that may be easier going back to that therapeutic approach. Make your child assess what might be the easiest thing to let go of and to organize. Go there first, encourage your child, support your child, understand that they are working through overcoming what might be a pretty significant challenge for your child.
In conclusion, I want to remind you that this Hoarding habit may indicate an underlying emotional issue for your child, so be sensitive to that. Don't shame your child. Seek. Your child seek support and therapy for your child, professional help. If it seems like this is beyond the scope that you, the parent can help your child with, you may need to bring in some extra help.
I, like I said, struggle at times with organization. I brought in some help for our family post pandemic, man. We could have been on that show, maybe not. Fully. That is a bit of an exaggeration, but it was hard for me to wade through just the piles of stuff and make decisions. So I brought in somebody to help me, Jess, if you're listening, thank you so much for your help and helping my family overcome our organizational challenges.
But for me, it wasn't an emotional thing. It was really a matter of. Feeling overwhelmed by clutter and not having good organizational systems. So bringing in somebody to help out was really, really beneficial for me. And then I was able to better model these behaviors for my children. So don't be afraid to seek professional help, either in the way of an organizer or perhaps somebody who has.
A background in therapy and in particular the therapy style that I mentioned ERP, which again is very beneficial in addressing hoarding tendencies associated with OCD and anxiety in all people, including children. It is important to keep in mind a holistic support for our Children. And again, create a nurturing environment, one based upon understanding and acceptance and also work towards empowering your child to overcome these challenges so they can grow and they can thrive and mature into you.
Adults who can do this for themselves and will not end up with these tendencies carrying over into their adult lives. Thank you so much for listening today.
