Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums General Discussion coping with desire to hoard

The picture is just a transitional help that lets her let go. She's probably not attached to all those objects and papers; she's "just" experiencing anxiety about the permanence of getting rid of them.

FWIW, I have trained myself to be good at throwing things out. It's a skill that can be learned.

DeeDee

I am a "keeper" myself (not quite up to hoarding status), and DH spent 22 years living out of footlockers and doesn't think anything should be kept, so it gets interesting at our house. Both kids are cluttermonsters as well.

I was only able to get rid of certain clothes (outgrown by DD6) last week by taking pictures of them for posterity -- most of it she was willing to put in the donations bag, but some were sticking points. I will note that the same strategy worked for me when I managed to allow myself to get rid of some toys that I had had since I was a toddler -- worn, ratty stuffed animals full of love who went into the trash after having their pictures taken.

We keep boxes in the closet, one for each child, which are for the "save" papers and artwork, but most ordinary assignment papers get tossed. I tend to do that when they aren't looking, and they never ask. Sometimes DD will catch me tossing one that she wants to keep, but she doesn't fuss too much when I explain that all the special ones went in her box.

Toys, miscellaneous junk, all that stuff tends to build up alarmingly between cleanings.

I "hoard". I have kept everything my son has ever drawn, worn, touched. I have everything packed in storage containers. For a long time, we tried to have another baby so I thought our eldest was going to be our only child. However, now we have our second, I am the same with his stuff LOL.

My babies will never be these ages again; they will never draw, make, or wear these things again.

Oh my.

Although I'm no Felix Unger, I do like the kids' rooms to be reasonably neat & tidy. Basically, everything off the floor and off the bed... and put away properly.

Where I start to lose it, though, is when a child accumulates buckets of poo, which are essentially the result of a lazy clean-up effort. Finding one of these containers filled with a jumbled mess of clothing, books, toys, etc. just drives me to distraction.

My solution? A few days visiting the grandparents for both kids. I stay home and get out the bull-dozer.

To be somewhat fair, however, I will toss everything into a large "Purgatory Box" which will be held for a month or so. If the child can name a specific missing thing, I will pull it out. Otherwise, the box goes to the thrift store.

Anytime I find myself losing my resolve, I just watch an episode or two of Extreme Hoarding on Netflix. Never fails to get me all fired up again.

I am not sure if I could have started this as effectively later in life, but when my most hoarding inclined child was small (3-5) I gave her the choice of helping/watching me clean out her room or letting me do it. Either way everything i removed would go into the shed for x amount of time and she could ask for it back. She quickly learned she couldn't bear to watch and let me go for it. And she's never asked for anything back. Now at 11 she both retains less precious paper to start off with and is learning to toss stuff when her room needs a big overhaul...

I'm lucky that my eldest, who is also inclined to also hold onto everything, is a neat freak and always has been. Lots of cupboards makes for a tidy room and house. And when they're full, that's what the shed is for!

This is us. DD10 and myself are both pseudo-almost-hoarders. My poor DH hates it but has resigned himself.

I put things in storage and periodically look through them to see if I can get rid of some of it. Usually the longer I've kept something the more likely I am to let it go. It's funny because I'll look at an item and think "omg why am I keeping this?" at the same time that I'm remembering that six months ago I HAD to keep it.

Most of our house is pretty normal, but cluttered. My office is chaos, lol.

My daughter's room is... well... awful. (It's clean - I have a VERY strict no food, drinks or pets rule, but it's just crammed with stuff.) We're working at it slowly and there has been progress. Just when I'm feeling optimistic about it, I'll visit a friend and see a "typical" child's room - tidy, minimal stuff, etc., and I start feeling overwhelmed again, lol!

Squishys I can completely relate to your statement: "My babies will never be these ages again; they will never draw, make, or wear these things again." It's so true. I tell myself that I can get rid of some of it, though, and I'm not losing them with the stuff. It's hard though. I know how you feel

DD is particularly strange about her clothes. She wants to keep every article of clothing she's ever worn. I want to hand some stuff down to her cousins, but I can't get her to part with it. If I do it behind her back and she sees her cousins wearing something she used to own, the damage to her trust in me would be massive. So instead I talk with her and reason with her and she'll eventually part with one or two things. There's progress, but it's painstakingly slow.

An upside is that she's made fantastic progress with packaging (from toys, & whatever is new that came packaged). She used to obsessively want to keep every scrap of packing that came with stuff (O.M.G.). Now she's very comfortable about handing most of it (not all) over to me for recycling. Yay....

We've done the bin thing, and it is awesome! I told DD5 that she was free to keep anything she liked, but when it wouldn't close anymore, she would have to make some choices. The funniest thing is watching her review old stuff and saying, "WHY oh WHY did i ever think this old thing was important?!" before she tosses it blithely into recycling. Good luck!!

I can relate to your DH - I'm like that some times too! Some times the girls will put something in the "get rid of" pile that I really cherish and they obviously don't feel the same connection.

Once we did a purge of stuffed animals and they both wanted to get rid of the Build-A-Bear animal they "lovingly" made that cost probably $30-$40, but wanted to keep some junky creature they got out of a machine at an arcade.

Well, mommy can have a bin, too...