The Great Canadian Kid Clothes Clear Out

(though I know this applies to kids clothes of all climates and countries)

I also cleaned out two of my kid’s closets with them this past month.

The great kid’s clothes rotation is a perpetual event that I forget to keep up with.

This is how I do it with my kids.

• Pep talk: (I encourage them to do this with me, 💃🏽 let’s put on some music, want cocoa? 👯‍♀️ Let’s make it fun!)
  • side note, this is why I only was able to do 2/3 kids, the 3rd was onto me that this would not really be that fun for him, so I’m stewing on a different tactic to take with him.
• I take out their drawer (or all their clothes and put them on the floor).

• • Then I lift up an item and ask them ‘Does this still fit you? Do you love to wear it?”
    • *I don’t talk them into getting rid of things. I let them make these decisions. AND if there is something that is really worn/torn or too small, I will just remove it while I do laundry because I still have Mom Veto, but I want them to learn to be in charge of this for themselves.
  • Then we fold it (and yes, I am an OG file fold from before Marie Kondo taught us how to do life) 

• And the rest of the clothes go into a bin I keep in the closet of stuff to give away (thankfully I could pass them right on to the neighbour)

My takeaways:

It is a small investment of time to teach a life skill

This process does take a little longer to do it together, maybe about 30 minutes. BUT I think it is a great way to teach the LIFE SKILL of decluttering with our kids

(By the way, I have a free mini-guide to Declutter with Kids, if you are interested)

A clothes rotation system can be so handy

I feel on top of things when I have a good clothes rotation system for my kids. I know there is more I want to bring into this system, but here are a couple of things that are working for me:

1. Keeping a bin in the closet to put outgrown clothes
2. Keeping a bin/drawer/shelf for clothes that they are about to grow into
3. Keeping the seasonal stuff packed in storage BUT keeping a list of what is there on my phone so I don’t go and buy extras

👩🏻‍💻 Recently Decluttered is a feature periodically shared in the Simple Saturdays email.  You can find the Recently Decluttered Archives here