Reclaim Your House After Kids Go Back To School

Reclaim Your House After Kids Go Back To School

Guest Post by Tracy McCubbin, Founder, dClutterfly

Website: https://tracymccubbin.com/

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It’s the most wonderful time of the year -- time to send the kids back to school and reclaim your household!  After a summer of camps and goofing around inside, your house may need a little tough love to get back into shape for the fall.  Research shows that the average American home has 300,000 items in it, and back-to-school is the perfect time to get rid of the ones that you don’t need anymore.

As the kids head back to school and you take the steps to get your house back and order, I’m sharing ten of my favorite tips and tricks to declutter and organize your home this fall:

1.            Pull out all the homework and artwork from the previous school year. Before the onslaught of this school year’s homework and artwork, make sure you have decluttered last year’s. We all know Little Timmy is smart as a whip, but you don't need to keep every piece of homework he brings. Homework has one purpose and one purpose only: to help kids learn. It's not to be immortalized in boxes in the garage that you'll never look it. Empty backpacks, desk drawers and those piles you've been meaning to tackle and pick the best of the best. Save the things that are substantial and remind you who they were at the time in their lives.  As for artwork, how many turkey hands does one family need? Pare down to a small but great representation of their masterpieces and let the rest go.  Take photos if you just can't bare to let them go.  You might want to also consider making art books out of the artwork.  A crayon self portrait looks so much better in a book for the long run than in a box in your garage. You can make them yourself with any number of apps but if you need a little help, I love Souvenartebooks!

6 Tips to Encourage Your Kids to Eat Healthier

At some point in time, every parent has gone through the food wars with their child.  Whether it’s from the beginning of refusing the bottle or breast or they turn up their noses at fruit and vegetables.  For most of us – our picky eaters eventually outgrow their pickiness and expand their repertoire of foods.

I’m know that I’m lucky that my children actually love most fruit and vegetables.  If I have fruit available, they will eat it.  However, with a special needs child in the house, meal prep can become a huge problem.  Especially when that child has become a full-fledged teenager and no longer willing to be guided; however reluctantly, away from poor choices.  It also doesn’t help when her “won’t eat” foods changes frequently.  I just get into the groove of making potatoes one way when she announces she will only eat potatoes if there are made a different way. 

I swear having a special needs child was all about teaching me to become more flexible!  Believe me, it’s an ongoing learning process but here’s my take on how to get your kids to eat healthy.