Stop Clutter From Wrecking Your Family: Organize Your Children, Your Spouse, and Your Home.
Cluttering families are dysfunctional families, to some degree. While having a cluttering teenager or kids or a spouse who clutters doesn't rank up there with alcoholism or abuse as family disrupters, it is still a problem.
Stop Clutter From Wrecking Your Family is about a lot more than organizing – it’s about creating a less stressful family life for you, and a better life for your children. Cluttering, whether by your children or spouse, creates tension at home. Personal stories will demonstrate strategies that have worked for real families just like yours. You’ll learn how to turn decluttering into a family activity that will bring you closer to each other. Changing your child’s cluttering habits now will help him do better in school, marriage and jobs. Experts in child psychology and family dynamics will provide insights on how being messy affects life in general. Messiness isn’t about stuff – it’s about people.
Traditional organizing techniques alone don’t work for everyone. People relate to their stuff differently. A visual child need different tools than his auditory sibling. Use the right tools and your job will be easier. Make staying neat a game with a reward and your children will do it gladly. Made it a punishment and they’ll do it grudgingly, if at all.
Telling a child to, “clean up your room,” is frustrating – for the child and the parent. It’s too vague. Parents are torn between teaching children structure and encouraging creativity. This book will help parents of young children bridge that gap by teaching them how teach structure without stifling their children’s independence or creativity.
Adults clutter for a variety of emotional reasons. Kids clutter either because they simply haven’t been taught why not to (as opposed to simply how not to) or as an expression of rebellion, of having a sense of control in their lives. Teach them the “why” and then the “how to.” Sometimes, cluttering may be one sign of AD/HD, OCD, a reaction to divorce, or some other traumatic life-event. Learn these signs so you can do something meaningful about it.
What if the clutterer is your spouse – or you? How can you teach your children order if they see conflicting behaviors from their parents? The key is understanding that cluttering is more about emotional triggers than organizing skills. There will be techniques presented that will truly help a cluttered adult permanently change her behavior and improve her life. When the cluttering person understands how cluttering is affecting her children and marriage, she’ll be more motivated to change. “Organizing” is too vague a goal for adults too. Your entire household will be more peaceful and stressless when the family declutters together.
Mike Nelson is the founder and Executive Director of Clutterless Recovery Groups, a nonprofit organization that sponsors self-help groups where clutterers learn to change their cluttering behaviors. He’s published two books on cluttering as a psychological issue, as well as fifteen books on other subjects. He’s worked with families, presented workshops nationwide and spoken about cluttering at universities and businesses. A reformed clutterer himself, he understands what works and what doesn’t.