We we first decided to become minimalists, my kids were 5 and 2.
Today they are 16 and 12.
Which means 10 years, I've been working to embrace minimalism with children.
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It is absolutely possible.
With children, I believe minimalism is more important, even though it can be more difficult.
But it is absolutely worth the effort.
Here are 5 important things that I have learned over the last 10 years.
Number one: You cannot start by getting rid of your kid's stuff.
Just tell yourself that over and over again.
It is entirely unfair for you to begin your minimalism journey
by forcing your kids to get rid of their stuff.
You have to do all of your things first.
Your bedroom, your clothes, your kitchen,
your home office, your garage, your hobby stuff...
Do your things first so they can see you, they can watch you, and then begin implementing
it in their rooms as well.
The second thing that is important to keep in mind is I'm a big fan of over explaining
"why?"
So explain to your kids why you are embracing this new lifestyle, what benefits you're experiencing from it
what you're hoping to accomplish instead, what some of the things are that
you'll be able to do as a family as you begin accumulating fewer and fewer things.
Think of what you would do with the extra time, and the extra money, and the extra energy in your life.
And explain that to them, as best as you possibly can.
The third thing to keep in mind is, you should include your kids in this process
as much as possible.
Include your kids: allow them to pick out their own toys that they're going to keep,
their own clothes that they're going to keep, their own artwork that their going to keep.
I think it'w when we run into this pattern of waiting until they're asleep and getting
rid of all of their toys, this is when we run into some attachment issues that happen
along the way.
The fourth tip, and a very important key is this: when embracing minimalism with children,
look for physical boundaries as much as possible.
When we first introduced minimalism to my son who was 5 years old at the time,
he had an entire toy room full of toys.
And to help him with the process of choosing what to keep and what to get rid of, we said,
"You can keep as many toys as you want that fit against this wall."
And then we empowered him to make the decisions about what to keep and what to get rid of.
But he could see, physically, this is how much I can keep, if I keep this
I have get rid of that.
We've used this principle over and over again.
Today my daughter, she keeps as many toys as fit in her closet.
She's able to keep as much artwork as fits in the bin under her bed.
She can collect whatever she wants, as long as they fit in the bottom drawer of her dresser,
her clothes, physical boundaries, over and over and over again.
The fifth thing I think as parents we need to remind ourselves of is this:
that boundaries are important for kids to learn.
Saying "no" to kids is a good thing.
Helping kids understand that we have limited time, and limited money,
and limited physical space.
That all of life ultimately is about deciding what is most important,
and what I'm going to put into my life.
Kids who don't learn boundaries become adults who never establish them.
Becoming minimalist with kids is absolutely more difficult, but it is certainly more important
as well.
You can do it, I know you can.
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