Are your Kids Hoarders?

A few days ago the LA Times published a great article by Alexandria Abramian-Mott, on a question that I get all the time from parents, Are My Kids Hoarders? The article goes on to explain that there are distinctions we, as parents, can make between just being a kid and a child who actually has a hoarder problem.

When working with parents, as the article explains, there are solutions that we put in place so that a child's collection of silly bands, legos, blocks and coloring books to do not get out of control.

I am the mom to 3 year old identical twin girls. Ever since they were 2, I have involved them in the process of organizing. They know that it isn't a one time event but we make it a fun process at certain times of the year. For instance, I know they would collect books forever unless we went through them from time to time. Since they just turned 3 and I knew they would be receiving more books for their birthday, we all sat together and went through the books that they no longer read. I empowered them to place books that were for "babies" in one pile to donate and give away to families that didn't have books. We also made another pile of those books that they were currently reading. This way, we had room for more books that I knew were coming in. We then went together to our school to donate the books they were no longer using. It wasn't a tug of war but something they now enjoy doing. And we will constantly do this for each "category" of their things.

Check out the article for some other fascinating thoughts on the topic of hoarding and kids.