Mucking out with children: The 9 most important insights

When I started writing this article, I decided to stop making excuses and finally clear out the children's room. Just in time for Christmas, before lots of new things would be moving in again. So I turned the music on my mobile phone to loud and worked my way through the shelves like Marie Kondo while my children were at nursery school. I threw everything that was broken or had not been played with for a long time into my study.

The pile lay there for a few days, staring reproachfully at me as I wrote. Until my five-year-old son saw it, rediscovered long-forgotten things with joy - and carried everything back to his room.

Collections at primary school age can be bizarre: napkins, broken crayon tips or even animal bones.

My children are collectors. And like two little squirrels, they are reluctant to give their treasures away. If I really want to sort them out, I have to be quick and stealthy like a ninja. Otherwise they argue over every little plastic figurine. Why do children actually collect so much? And do parents really have to keep every picture they have drawn and every pine cone? I asked an educationalist and a tidying-up expert.

1 Why do children like collecting so much?

Around the age of one and a half, most children start to accumulate their own possessions and say: «This is mine.» Behind the collecting and storing is often their desire to surround themselves with beautiful things, says Ludwig Duncker. The emeritus professor of educational science and author of the book «Wenn Kinder sammeln: Encounters in the World of Things» has researched children's collecting behaviour. Even babies are interested in objects, explore them with their hands or put them in their mouths out of curiosity.

«It's learning through discovery, an aesthetic interest in things,» says Duncker. Children's urge to explore the world with all their senses also plays a role in collecting. When they don't just walk straight ahead on a forest walk, but pick up stones and pine cones along the way, they perceive their environment intensively.

The battered teddy bear is much more important to a child than the new, perfect toy.

Ludwig Duncker, educationalist

At primary school age, some children create collections on a specific topic. This can sometimes be bizarre, says Duncker: napkins, broken crayon tips or even animal bones. The collection becomes an expression of their personality, gives them something to talk about and makes them interesting for other children. By engaging with something, children acquire knowledge about it. They feel like experts in their field.

2 Why do children see treasure in everything?

Unlike adults, children have no understanding of the economic value of an object, says educational scientist Duncker. They attach their own value to things: «The battered teddy bear is much more important to a child than the new, perfect toy.»

Adults can learn what it is like to look at the world through children's eyes and see the magic of small things. Children and adults meet at eye level, says Duncker, when they explain the collections to their parents. «The children can then also feel superior for once.»

It is only from primary school age that children start to swap things like football trading cards with their friends or sell their old toys at the flea market. And then they slowly begin to realise the economic value of things.

3. why do children not like to part with their treasures?

Shells evoke associations with beach holidays, while the porcelain cat was a gift from her late grandmother. «For children, their collections are like a text without letters that only they can read,» says Duncker. A kind of cultural memory to remind them of wonderful experiences from the past. No wonder children then find it difficult to part with their things.

Mucking out is like brushing your teeth: You have to practise it regularly.

Denise Colquhoun, tidying expert

But not every broken plastic dinosaur in the nursery has such a deep meaning. Sometimes children just don't want their parents to have control over them. Children draw boundaries when they say «That's mine»; it is an expression of their autonomy. And parents should respect that.

4. are parents allowed to secretly clean out the children's room?

As beautiful as children's mementos are: At the latest when shelves and drawers are overflowing, most parents want to clear out the children's room. But even though it may be tempting, you shouldn't do it in secret.

«With children under the age of three, it's okay to clear out the collection of pins from the last walk in the woods without consulting them,» says Denise Colquhoun. The tidying expert helps families to declutter and has been blogging as «Fräulein Ordnung» for twelve years.

However, parents should involve their children in the sorting process from kindergarten age at the latest. Especially when it comes to personal belongings. After all, we adults wouldn't like it either if someone cleared out the living room behind our backs.

By the age of three, most children are able to put boxes away and sort things out, says Denise Colquhoun. It is important that children practise clearing out regularly so that it becomes natural - «like brushing their teeth». Parents could, for example, provide their children with a flea market box, says Colquhoun, so that they regularly dispose of old toys. And when things are broken, ask: «Can this go?»

5 How often should children's toys be sorted out?

To prevent so many things from piling up in the first place, it's best to sort them out regularly. Tidying expert Colquhoun recommends once a month so that children internalise clearing out as a habitual ritual and learn to ask themselves: What do I really need?

For children of primary school age, parents could suggest selling the old toys at a flea market as an incentive to raise money for new ones. Or donate them together to children in need.

Ideally, every item should have its own place in the children's room.

Denise Colquhoun, tidying expert

At kindergarten age, some children do not yet understand that their discarded items are really gone. You can then give them time to think about it and, if possible, store the old toys in the cellar until the children are able to make the decision themselves.

6. where to put self-painted pictures?

Whether at nursery or at home - many children love to colour. Denise Colquhoun advises parents to create a folder. The best pictures are filed in consultation with the children. All the others go in the rubbish bin. Parents should feel free to explain that you can't keep everything. Even small children can understand that.

You can flick through the folder from time to time. And look together: «Which pictures can go out? Which new ones can go in?» The folder should always be accessible to the children, for example on the living room shelf. This way, they can enjoy their artwork again and again.

7 How can you motivate children to muck out?

For small items that are often lying around in the children's room, sorting out can be organised as a game, says the tidying expert: parents pack everything into a shoe box and place an egg timer next to it. On «go», the box is tipped out onto the floor. The children have one minute to decide which items they want to keep. Whatever is left over is thrown away or given away. «The children feel challenged and have great fun.»

8. how to keep the children's room tidy?

Lego, dolls, wooden train sets: «Ideally, every item should have its own place in the children's room,» says Denise Colquhoun. Ideally in boxes that are labelled with pictures. Then even kindergarten children can recognise what the boxes are for - and what belongs in them.

If you can make mucking out fun for children and parents, then it works well.

Denise Colquhoun, tidying expert

Parents can give their children an extra treasure chest for small items. The trick is that once the box is full, the children have to sort it out to make room for new things. Parents can also give children a box or shelf on the shelf for special collections. As much as there is room for is allowed.

9 What about your own chaos?

Parents are also role models when it comes to tidiness. If you keep every broken pen yourself, it is difficult to teach your children how important it is to sort things out. However, decluttering should not cause stress. «Your home doesn't have to look like a furniture store,» says expert Colquhoun. An always clean, minimalist home is not possible with small children - and is not the goal. It's more about making sure that every item has a place.

«Mucking out should be fun - for parents and children,» says Denise Colquhoun. «If you manage to convey this feeling, then it works well.»