Have a Sentimental Summer and use these tips for sorting school work and kids’ memorabilia.
Summer is perfect for getting a handle on all those sentimental school objects, papers, and artwork you and your kids are keeping. Perhaps you have a designated spot where you dump things throughout the year? Before you sit down to sort through the sentimental savings, it helps to understand how sentimental you are. Do you want to keep everything, are you detached, or somewhere in between?
Having an awareness of what we learned from our upbringing will be a great guide to your decision-making process moving forward!
Reflect on your childhood and how your parents handled your memorabilia. Sometimes, how our family “taught” us is how we respond, and other times, we want to do the direct opposite. Did your parents keep everything and then hand it over to you after college or when you moved out? Or did they dump it in the trash? What did you do with your sentimental treasures from childhood? Do you still have those things? When was the last time you looked through your memory albums, boxes, etc.? Be aware that what you do today will impact your kids’ behavior tomorrow, and they may already have a strong opinion about what they want to keep or discard (which might differ from yours).
Once you have a clear idea of what you want to keep and why, you can create a system for sorting schoolwork and storing your children’s memories.
Kids Desk Before
Kids Desk After
Assign yourself a number between 1 and 5 based on the following guidelines
1-Toss it in the trash, the past is the past
2-Only the best, toss the rest
3-I want to keep a nice representation of each stage to help recall memories
4-There’s a lot I want to keep, but I get that I can’t keep it all
5-I want to keep it all, it’s a part of life that’s worth remembering and revising
Once you know where you fall on the ‘sentimentality spectrum’, you can ask yourself some practical questions.
- What do I have room to keep?
- How and where will I store what I keep, then designate a place?
- Am I willing to let go of everything but the “Best”?
- Can I keep some things on display for a while, then let them go? Where and how will they be displayed?
- Will my kids want this?
- Is this something our family can use again (baby clothes/toys if you’re still in the process of raising kids)?
- Is this something we have outgrown that someone else could use?
- Is there a special way I can commemorate this memory, hobby, or event, such as a scrapbook, digital book, tee shirt quilt, or framed display?
Display of Kids’ Awards
Let these questions serve as a guide for you as you review your kids’ school materials from the past year (or longer, if you’ve been putting it off). You may want to do a quick review of what you’ve kept throughout the year on your own, and then involve older kids, especially if you know they are sentimental or older and can handle this on their own. You may be able to snap photos and keep digital records of some things.
If you know they (or you) want to keep almost everything, then decide if there are some things you can honor by creating special displays or photos of them. Maybe it’s a kids’ art wall, a photo book of activities through the year, or an awards display area on a wall in their room. Spending time recognizing your kids’ accomplishments over the past year can be a fun way to honor them, rather than letting the “stuff” pile up in the corner or closet. Take this time to treat your kids as the exceptional individuals they are.
Your kids will remember the sentimental summer time you spent together, and recall what you did together more than any box of stuff you save for them.
Do you have a school year ending “ritual” with your kids? Now is the perfect time to start! Need help? Email me; I’d be thrilled to help you create a plan for your kids’ sentimental and childhood legacy.
Thank you, Heather. I needed this. đŸ™‚
Of course, glad it helped!