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Adrift in a Sea of Stuff - Help!

I'm a thrower-outer. I'm not adamantly opposed to clutter and I like knick-knacks. But I don't keep a plastic fork because we might need it in the event the poles reverse and our metal ones quit working. My daughter is the one with all the crap. I clear her stuff out all the damn time, throwing crap away and donating other things. But she's getting old enough now that I don't like having to rifle through all of her bags and boxes. She's old enough to take care of her own stuff, and I'd like to start granting her a little more privacy. Oh, but the stuff.

I just found her stash of bookbags. Full of markers, pinecones, gum, a half-eaten Bonbel cheese. Lids to pens, without the pens. Paper trash of every stripe.

I control what she brings in the house. She has a deep-seated desire to acquire, and is upset if we go to, say, the hardware store and she doesn't get something. She's not bratty about it, but a little wounded. I realize this could become a monster of an issue, so I'm working to disconnect pleasure from acquisition. But it's not just buying that makes her happy. Her friends give her all sorts of crap, all the time. Rubber bands, crappy play jewelry, pencil erasers. I would rather not frisk her whenever she comes in the door, but it's getting to that.

The child loves stuff, especially the proximity of stuff. She stashes little items in her bed, in bags, all over the house. She like to be near it. It's truly bizarre. And she can name every damn item she has, even if she can't find it.

I just have no idea what kind of motivation/consequences/ whatever to use. I've tried all the usual, including getting rid of tons of stuff, taking it away for a while and making her earn it back. Any brilliant ideas?

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Permalink Reply by Gumbo Momma on July 4, 2010 at 6:27am

I really like the advice given about making room. We do that too. I once found 35 my little ponies while helping NB clean her room, so we went through and she was allowed to choose 10 to keep, the rest got donated. It's a good tool for teaching them to really sort out what's the most important.

Also, in reply to collecting owls and nesting dolls, I do too!!! HAve you seen THESE OWL NESTING DOLLS!!!! I've been drooling over them for months now!!!

Mamawho said:

Daria, that's occurred to me, too. I'd probably be even more sympathetic if she would make the slightest attempt to throw away trash and put other stuff away, or at least in her room.

She's more of a magpie than a packrat. If it appeals to her, she sticks it in her nest. HC, she has pretty rocks stashed all over her room. Sometimes I don't intercept them before doing the laundry, and I hear them dinging around the washer. I also have a huge wood bowl full of rose rocks. They actually look like roses.

And I collect art pottery, and owls, and nesting dolls. And scarves and brooches. And have several hundred books. But I put my shit away and cleverly display it, dammit.

I think I'm frustrated by her serious messiness - the cheese in the bedroom blew my lid - but also worried about her love of consumption. Perhaps I should worry about that after the trauma of packing her stuff has ebbed a bit.

McG - that personality stuff is fascinating. I collect information. Trivia makes me happy. I also like to learn to do things. I've taught myself to crochet in the last month, just because I didn't know how. But I felt compelled to learn about the history of crochet.

Back to my boxes. . .