Inside: When your kid’s a maximalist, and you’re a minimalist, how do you find a happy medium between your need for less stuff and their desire for more? These five tips are the ones I wish I’d had when I first discovered minimalism ten years ago.
My aunt loves to say that the pendulum is always swinging, especially from one generation to the next.
The millennials who were overwhelmed by all their boomer parent’s stuff (sorry, mom, I don’t want your china) and who grew up in an age of rampant overconsumerism swung HARD to the minimalist side of the spectrum.
We understood the assignment, and we purged like it was our job. We miiiiight have overdone it. Just a little bit.
We solidly rejected the idea that adulting equaled spending weekends organizing the garage, dusting underneath all the tchotchkes (dusting? no thanks) and cleaning the house, which was so much harder to do with all the stuff that had to be tidied first.
Then came our Gen Z and Gen Alpha children. And some of them had VERY different ideas about what makes a good life, including holding on to their stuff with grips of steel.
They also may or may not have been traumatized at some point by our varying levels of extreme decluttering binges. Some were necessary. Others, not so much.
Oh, and all the “griege”? Yeah, they’re definitely not fans, and they are slowly coaxing me back into the world of color. But I digress.
5 Must-Read Tips for When Your Child’s A Maximalist & You’re a Minimalist
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I ended up with at least two kids – the girls, funnily enough – who are decidedly maximalists, and two who are even more minimalist than I am (one says on repeat, “But we don’t neeeeed it.”).
One kid hasn’t picked a side yet, but he knows one thing for certain: there’s no such thing as too many stuffed animals.
The maximalist children are the ones who want to keep EVERYTHING, down to the two-year-old random Chick-fil-a toy to the gum wrapper they had in their pocket when we moved five years ago. Kidding…kind of?
If I even THINK a decluttering thought in the general direction of an object that is part of the general family stuff, I swear to god, they can hear it. And they think back with narrowed eyes that bore deep into my soul, “Don’t.even.think about it.”
One kid’s stuff habit is so bad, it was making me twitchy just to BE in her bedroom. I rarely buy organizing bins anymore, but I felt strongly compelled to buy THESE Container Store bins to organize the stuff just to stop the twitching.
So what do you even do when your kids are maximalists and you’re a minimalist?
Here’s how I’ve come to terms with it.
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1. Establish boundaries for what can stay in family space, and what cannot.
As the primary manager of our home, I need less stuff in my orbit. Like NEED need to stay sane and keep going with all the things.
So I created a distinction between family spaces and their own spaces. I largely give them free rein over their bedrooms, and we work together to decide which toys/games should stay in family space.
I do my best to honor what is family stuff and to make decisions about what stays in family space as a group.
But beyond the joint stuff? The rest needs to stay in their own spaces.
2. Give them full autonomy over their space, with the exception of safety concerns that can arise from too much stuff.
In their bedrooms, they are free to be their maximalist selves. I’ll even help them add new storage solutions to house all that stuff.
We do discuss safety concerns. I bring up my favorite “too much stuff cautionary tale,” and remind them that they can keep their stuff, so long as it doesn’t cause injuries (translation: keep your stuff off the floor.)
I love them, and if this stuff matters to them, I want to help them figure out how to keep it.
That being said, there are limits, which is where container boundaries come in….
3. Set container boundaries, and use post-it notes with dates on things you think are on their way out.
Board games live in one place in our house: two blue Kallax IKEA shelves in the playroom. When it’s full, it’s full. Time to decide which games we like enough to keep, and what doesn’t make the cut.
The same is true of bookshelves. We have two bookshelves, and one wall to display books. When we run out of room, it’s time to make some tough choices.
Help them establish their own container boundaries in their rooms and create a system for knowing when it’s time to rehome something.
This will look very different depending on each kid.
My oldest survived two long-distance moves and my early hardcore minimalist phase. To say she’s sentimental is an understatement. She also has her dad’s tendency to see the future potential in just about anything.
But she did take my minimalist teachings to heart to some extent.
She’s very aware at this point that her room can’t fit everything. She’s established her own containers for stuff categories and found her own rhythms and methods for letting go of stuff.
My youngest maximalist, on the other hand, needs more support at this stage. I’ll talk with her openly about how I haven’t seen her play with a certain toy in a while, and when she insists she wants to keep it (her default), I suggest the post-it experiment.
Let’s put a post-it with today’s date on this toy. If you haven’t used it in six months, we’ll talk about it again.
When six months goes by without her playing with it, she realizes that yeah, she doesn’t actually play with it anymore and is usually willing to pass it along to a kid who might love it.
4. Help them organize their stuff (within reason).
Just because you choose to own less stuff, which likely makes organization easier, doesn’t mean you can’t help your maximalist kiddo with organization solutions for their abundance of stuff.
Before you go on a spending spree at your local Container Store, take a step back and consider your child’s organization style and needs.
Do they need to see their stuff to remember it’s there? Or do they like things tucked away in opaque containers?
Wall hooks are far easier for younger kids to keep things off the floor than clothes hangers, and a decent closet system can go a long way.
Obviously this will depend on your budget for organization products, and how much you’re willing to spend to support your maximalist child’s desire to keep a bunch of stuff.
Personally, we settled on a modest budget to help our maximalist children keep their stuff organized. We purchased an extra set of IKEA cube shelves for my oldest as a Christmas gift, and a set of THESE stackable white bins for my youngest.
5. Give them the freedom to find their own stuff limits.
Man, I used to be such a minimalist snob.
Years later, I know that just because I personally am happier with less stuff doesn’t mean my kids need to be – or anyone else for that matter.
A lower stuff threshold makes my life juggling five kids and homeschooling and work so much easier! But that doesn’t really apply to them operating in their own room as one person.
They don’t all have the same overwhelm I do from too much stuff, and it seems to truly bring my little maximalists joy to have more stuff.
As long as they’re being safe with their stuff, not living beyond their means, and aware of all the marketing tactics in play today to make them want more, not less, they are free to find the stuff threshold that makes them happy.
Do I still talk about what overconsumption is doing to the planet? Yeah, and they grew up on Wall-E, so they get it.
Do I talk about taking care of the stuff we have and how stuff takes time to maintain? Sure.
But maybe they do have the time to maintain and organize that amount of stuff to their level of satisfaction, and that’s great. You do you, babe.
Raise your right hand and repeat after me, “I solemnly swear that I will not judge my kid for being a maximalist at heart.”
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In My Experience, Trying to Force Minimalism Leads to Nothing Good
My older maximalist and/or sentimental kids still talk about the things I “made” them declutter, or what they lost in our move-gone-wrong from Boston to Raleigh years ago.
I’m not going to defend myself. I’m 100% certain that my previously hardcore minimalist self persuaded my kids to get rid of stuff they weren’t sure they were ready to part with. I know because they won’t let me forget it 😏.
The parent-pleasing impulse is very real, which is why we work so hard now to create a more balanced power dynamic where they are free to speak up and say, “No,” and, “I don’t want to do that.”
Doubling down on minimalism and forcing your kids to declutter things will absolutely impact your relationship with them, and not in a good way. How can it not?
They’ll either resent you for it later, OR they will never figure out their own relationship with stuff and what makes them happy. And you may or may not be asked to pay for their therapy.
Either way, going to war over that basket of stuffed animals they never play with anymore but insist they must keep forever just isn’t worth it. And let’s be honest: they’ll probably get rid of it voluntarily two or three years from now.
So learn to let go, and be the adult who is (theoretically, at least) capable of patience. Establish reasonable boundaries for family space, close the bedroom door, and patiently wait for it to work itself out.
(Besides, if you dig in your heels, they might just keep all the things forever to spite you. And then no one wins.)
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