How I Helped My Adult Child Declutter—Without Losing My Mind

Last month I decluttered my 20-year-old daughter’s room with her and learned a lot of valuable lessons. The idea of decluttering is distasteful (or alien?) to many young folks but if you can make it happen there is a lot of wisdom you can gain in the process, for them and for you. Helping your adult child declutter can be a positive experience, if you do it right!

Every kid is different (as my own 3 demonstrate on a daily basis.) I’m not suggesting everything I share here will apply verbatim to your kid. But, I did use wisdom gleaned from 4 years of working with clients (most with kids of various ages) and brought it all to bear on my own daughter. And it worked!

Decluttering with your grown kid is different than curating the stuff from their early childhood, because the stuff in their room is what they’ve collected on their own. So your feelings and opinions need to take a back seat to theirs. Take what you want from this story and leave the rest. Shedding the weight of the things not serving you and editing down to the things that matter is a life skill, so if your kid takes anything from this experience I’d count it as a huge win.

First, The History

The first thing to know about helping an adult child declutter is that it had been years in the making. When my daughter was a senior in high school and my organizing business was in its fledgling state, I organized her room for her while she was at school one day, thinking she’d be thrilled. I was wrong. She was so angry with me, felt I had invaded her privacy and definitely did not consider it a favor! So after that I stayed out of her room.

Fast forward a few years. This kid likes to thrift, travels back and forth from Seattle to San Francisco for college and is perfectly happy with a messy room. When she is home I often ask our cleaning folks to skip her room, since it is rarely in shape for them to clean.

When she left for a semester abroad in London in January, I got her permission to move everything that was left on her floor into her closet. I wanted our cleaners to be able to actually get in there to clean. I also wanted any housesitters from Trusted Housesitters to have access to her bedroom if they wanted to stay there.

So when she returned home, the room was clean but the closets were stuffed to the gills with everything she had accumulated since she moved into this bedroom in 2019. Her plan was to spend the summer in San Francisco working so I gently told her that I needed her to declutter and clean up her room before she left. I also shared the reasons why. Then I offered my help if she wanted it. And to my surprise, she accepted.

Next, Stay in Wise Mind

Before I got started helping my adult child declutter I had to put on my game face. I went in treating her as I would any of my paying organizing clients. This meant leaving my judgement at the door. No commenting on how many clothes she has that she doesn’t wear. No scolding in the event we came across something I disapproved of. Couldn’t show anger if I found something of mine that had mysteriously disappeared sometime back. And definitely no trying to convince her to keep something she didn’t want but I felt attachment to.

Getting into wise-mind took a bit of effort, like giving myself a pep talk before heading into the ring. I say to my clients all the time ‘I make suggestions, you make decisions.’ But the difference is I do not have attachment, deep background knowledge or any hangups about my clients. So it was important to remind myself that the decisions about what to get rid of were hers, not mine.

I was able to operate in a supporting role in this exercise, but only because I’d done the mental prep work beforehand and was aware if I started to slip out of wise-wind. The work reinforced something I coach clients on all the time: there is a big generational difference in how midlifers and their kids relate to their stuff. ‘Stuff’ is so much more prevalent now than it was when we were children. With every generation, goods are more plentiful, cheaper and more convenient to acquire. So we had more stuff than our parents did. And our kids have more than we did. And we are now many generations removed from those lived through or were raised by someone who grew up in the Great Depression.

So that means our kids are less impressed by things. Nor do they feel an obligation to use and/or keep everything forever. My daughter got rid of a lot, including her High School Yearbooks – which surprised me. (COVID had a role to play there, I suspect!) She was happy to let go of many of the mementos I would have kept at her age. That said, she was able to clearly articulate why she kept the things she kept – and I ended up feeling very proud of her editing skills!

Last, Tactical Tips That Worked

There were some key tactics that made helping my adult child declutter a success. (When I say success I’m not only referring to the decluttering but also my relationship with my girl!) If you are attempting to declutter with your grown kid, plan for the following:

Make sure to take a break. My daughter’s room took 5 hours start-to-finish. We took a 30 minute break about 3 hours in. The decluttering and decision-making take the most out of anyone, so when you sense that mental fatigue is setting in, call a time-out and get some food or caffeine to get you through the last mile. Thirty minutes was perfect for us and gave us energy to finish the job. 

Prepare for trash. If you are someone who is uncomfortable with trash due to eco-anxiety, get ready. We cleared 5 bags of trash from my daughter’s room. Teens collect so much trash, if I didn’t do this for a living I wouldn’t have been mentally prepared for the volume! Anyway – have your large garbage bags ready to go.

Do a donation run right away. I highly recommend removing the donations right away when you’re done decluttering. Do some research ahead of time so you can be sure your spot is open and accepting donations. Take you kid with you on the run and then stop for your reward on the way home!

Reward at the end. My daughter opted for McDonald’s fries and we chatted about the experience while reaching into the fry bag all the way home. It was fun and put a positive end-cap on the day. 

My girl definitely does not get the same pleasure that I do from gazing into her beautifully decluttered and organized closet. However, it’s now easy to find things in her room, pack for school and put clean laundry away. And I have peace of mind!  Amen to that.