DD recently had a major meltdown out of nowhere where it came out that she was extremely upset with me for recycling her graded schoolwork. I have always done this in her full view and never thrown away things like writing assignments or long-term projects--just your basic math and spelling worksheets. It turns out that she wants to keep these, or at least have the right to keep them. She also is upset that we have in the past thrown out some of the vast quantity of artwork she produces, with or without (I admit, sometimes it is without, for little stuff) her permission. She says she wants to keep these things "because they have memories," btw.
She has always had a tendency to want to keep everything...just...everything. I know this is not uncommon for kids. Okay, I try to accommodate to some extent--her room is farrrrr more full of random stuff than I would like and her desk is stuffed full of papers--- but clutter makes me crazy and we have quite a small home. Also, beyond that, I wonder how much of this is a manifestation of anxiety, perfectionism, etc. Both DH and his mother have a lot of trouble dealing with "stuff" and paper and tend to pile, keep everything, never sort, etc. I feel like this can be a kind of paralysis that can really be quite serious.
Thoughts? The Lego thread going now makes me think this is not at all uncommon here. BTW, we have also had the Lego issue. My kids are allowed to keep one creation "out" at a time and the rest we take photos of.
