Nathan decided to go through the shirts in his drawer, because he was having a hard finding something to wear in the morning. I told him he could just take them all out of the drawer and sort them on my bed. I suggested he start by sorting them into groups by size:
So this is what he came up with. The kid has a love affair with Post-its, so he decided to label the size each pile represented with a Post-it. Anything that was ridiculously small was bagged up for the PTA Clothes Closet (affiliated with Portland Public Schools. They really need little boys’ clothes, so if you have some laying around, please donate them here!)
He tried on the clothes that looked like they might still fit. And he put back into the drawer anything that did fit. Which amounted to 3 shirts. Grandma, we need you to take him shopping at Kohl’s STAT!
You can sort through your clothes this way too (and I bet your kids can, as well!) Break the clothes-sorting job down into small steps by going through only one type of clothing at a time (e.g. dresses or sweaters). In addition to using Post-its to sort by size, you might want to make some additional categories like “Decide Later,” “Give to Friend” or “Sell.” Then be sure to follow through on those actions after you have sorted through everything and decide what to keep.
My son’s organizer training continues. My goal is that by age 15, I can take him with me on jobs and have him do all of the grunt work (i.e. Put together Ikea furniture, hangs shelves, put boxes of things in the truck, hang clothes on hangers). And after that, we will see where his interests take him. 🙂
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