Thanks for the thoughts. BTW, she is 9, not in middle school yet. One issue that came out was that she was upset about things we had gone through and sorted together (I thought!) on a recent room purge. She expressed happiness about how the room looked at the time, but apparently felt regret afterwards, missing the items we had thrown out. I have no idea how to handle that because we did do it quite collaboratively. I guess she felt pressured--she knows I like to get rid of clutter. I am a neat desk person, by the way. I prefer my desk surface empty, actually (maybe one or two small stacks).
I do think I will buy her a storage bin and allow her to manage the papers more herself. She has room for this in her room now. I suppose I just wonder how far to allow this. I truly feel it's a problem for DH and my MIL. We have done the photo thing a lot with building creations. She never asks to see the pictures, interestingly.
Last edited by ultramarina; 04/03/13 06:59 PM.
