Family Minimalism: "Avoid This ONE Decluttering Mistake!!" | BEFORE & AFTER Minimalism with Kids

I really appreciated your last point about not approaching minimalism as a means of threat or control. This strongly applies to both kids & adults alike because no one wants to feel that their personal belongings (and their attachments to them) are under threat - that's the #1 way to lose trust and partnership with your loved ones. So thank you for bringing that up! 👍

I feel the same about the mess now. I don't get anxiety about it because I know where everything lives and that it won't take long to tidy.

My husband and I are more minimal now than we were before we had our son. Now that he’s almost 4 he has seen a lot of declutters. He now will say “get rid of” “give to boy” or “throw away” on items. He has actually asked to do it on his own as well. He especially loves to give toys away when he sees the kid getting them. I’m always so proud of how quickly he is to get rid of things. He knows that bringing a new toy home means passing on toys he no longer uses. Another pro to this is he can pickup himself. He will come and say “mom I clean me room!” “New toys for me” that meaning toy rotation. 🙌🙌🙌 And when I say “I need to vacuum” he knows that’s his cue to pick up all his toys and the dog toys. I know if we weren’t on a minimalist journey it wouldn’t be this easy. There would be too much for him to pick up. And he would feel as overwhelmed as I was before I started on my journey. A messy house gives me stress and makes me anxious. Minimalism has really helped me live in the moment. I can tackle tasks rather than shutting down and doing nothing.

I completely agree on small appliances; I promise you don't need a nuwave oven. Something I find interesting is digital clutter because I take pictures of my 15 month son every day and now I've spent quite a bit of time decluttering video clips and pics.

love you and your channel! every time i watch your videos i think to myself that it would be such a shame to cover up those beautiful floors with a lot of furniture or carpets. to me minimalism is making the things shine that you already have instead of drowning them in clutter. greetings from germany :)

Love your channel!!! Thank you! A granny here so a little different perspective, but the concept is a lot of the same. In all honesty, I got a little freaked out when the grandbaby equipment started pouring in to our house. Our very own bouncer, walker, stroller, pack-n-play ... We are later in life grandparents and the days of kid theme were far gone. How did make room for it? We striuggled a bit, but then ... we got ruthless and got rid of other junk we didn't want any more. Whalah! Space for our new phase of life:) Besides the normal gramma and grampa dates, now, when we get the "hey, can you ..." call or text, we can put together our BUD (back up daycare :)) in 15 minutes. I said I wasn't going to be a "drop in daycare" gramma, but reality is we slowly put it away because we have so much fun. And we do that very easily. It doesn't overrun our whole house when he is not here. Like you said, it is our "beautiful mess" - a little area where all the fun (folded up) grandbaby, now toddler, stuff goes, and it makes us smile, not feel overwhelmed.

Those chairs are incredible. They make the dining room

I like to take photos of things I sell and donate. Weeks or months later, I try to see if I can remember what the items were. It feels so satisfying NOT to be able to remember most of it-and shown me they were the right things to let go. I haven't missed any of it.

my partner and I are quite minimal, mainly because I do not like cleaning and having our home very simple helps me to keep our house tidy all the time and clean as well with little effort. I have noticed that we are now suddenly getting many comments from family members since becoming pregnant that our beautiful home will automatically become a hot mess when baby arrives and we have more kids... frustrating. beautiful video! obviously it is possible to keep a tidy home with kids. who would have though ;)

I just found your channel and I really needed to hear this. I'm a mom to 4 (ages 11-1) and have been on our minimal journey for about 7 years. Lately our house feels like it's been so ridiculously cluttered again (kid garbage on the floor) and I was really questioning our progress, but I just cleaned up the floor in about 15 minutes. We're still going to do some additional rounds of getting rid of stuff, but it reminded me of how far we have come! Thank you!!❤❤❤

You’re exactly what I am looking for!!! Oh my gosh! I am a father of 3! And I thought how do I embrace this idea? Then you popped up! Thank YOU!

Just sharing in case any one else is stuck in a rut: my husband is usually less excited to declutter, and 85% more likely to want to hold on to stuff for the “what if” days…I had been feeling overwhelmed and knew it was time for a whole house re-declutter. I got him to watch HOARDERS episodes with me, lol and the motivation came back for me and him, and we were able to let go of even more things. Now I feel like I can actually breath easier, the stuff was just haunting me even though it was “out of site”

I minimized my Minimalism YouTube channels and you are #1 with the few I now follow. So happy to have you back and keep me on my journey.

Love the reality and the easy fast pickups and not being 100% perfectly clean 100% of the time.

When I was a very young child [3 or 4 years old] my parents forced me to get rid of some of my favorite toys. I was crying and begging them, but they remained unshaken. I haven't got rid of any toy since that accident. I am 20 now. So if you are a parent and you don't want to traumatise your kids don't put their beloved things into a giant black big back, so they will never see them again.

I've been waiting for this! Please do more videos on how to share the joy and vision of minimalism with kids. I have 4 kids, ages 4-14 and two of them are pretty good at being willing to part with stuff, but one is super sentimental and wants to keep everything.

I find it so hard with this toddler stage to truly declutter! Also, we only have 1 kid right now and know that we would like one more child in the semi near future. I feel like I have to keep EVERYTHING for the “just in case” needs of the next child. ❤

I love that you added that last point. Thank you for sharing your experience with minimalism as a mom! It almost seems impossible, but happy to see that theres a way.

oh my gracious. why have I only just discovered your channel?! your content is immensely helpful!

I so love your words of encouragement. Giving up "things" is a struggle. Being a former teacher and never knowing if you would ever get supplies in the future, tends to set into place habits that are exactly the opposite of where I want to be. I recently cleaned out a linens storage. I think I could do more, but I'm proud of what I did do. Baby steps. Thanks Marissa for your example and encouragement.