Being the father of five I sometimes feel that I’m getting pretty good and the whole parenting thing. But as my children are all fairly young I’m asking for help. Now, you must understand this is very difficult for me. I’d rather be lost for hours than ask for directions. I’d rather be dipped in mud and bugs than ask for help in just about anything.
But this situation has gotten out of hand. I have an eight year old in second grade and a six year old in Kindergarten and they’re just starting to make projects. Now we all have fun making them. We bond and it’s great fun and we take pride in it. My children tend to think big in these types of things so we don’t just have paper cherubs we have cardboard angels. We don’t make posters we create murals. You get the idea. And I’m all for it because I’m a little crazy and I’m secretly desperate for them to be the best in their classes. But the problem occurs when the children bring the projects home.
So now we have something quite large we all worked on together, took pride in, and laughed about AND IT’S SITTING IN THE MIDDLE OF OUR LIVING ROOM! Now I can’t tell them to put it in their room because the four girls are all in one room and there’s just no more room. I can’t put it in the boy’s room because it’s not his and let’s face it the life expectancy of a cardboard angel alone with the boy is about twenty minutes.
Now I know other parents must have dealt with this. What do you do with huge giant humongous projects…which by the way they take great considerable pride in. When company comes over the children show off their projects.
I refuse to let my home become a museum of elementary school projects. So do I throw them away when they’re sleeping, hold some kind of “letting go” ceremony, take a picture, make them throw it away? Flush it? I know some of you have been through this. What did you do? If you have any ideas I’m listening.
May 12, 2008 at 3:31 am
The “attic”. Sometimes really the attic, sometimes just another word for “the trash”. That’s how my parents did it, anyways. I never found out so I never cared. Kids have such short attention spans – once it’s out of sight and they’ve moved on, it’s out of mind.
May 12, 2008 at 3:45 am
Have you noticed there are people somewhere that will buy almost anything for sale on E-Bay? Maybe if you tried to pass if off as modern art. It’s probably a lot better than most of it. Kit
May 12, 2008 at 5:01 am
“Have you noticed there are people somewhere that will buy almost anything for sale on E-Bay? Maybe if you tried to pass if off as modern art.”
That is actually a really good suggestion. You just have to start the bid at 100 dollars or something like that. It may work, say that it is meant to show the exuberance of youth, or something like that. It seems with art, you just need to say that it is something, whether it is or not doesn’t matter.
I work at a small university art gallery. We had one exhibit in that had to do with the Massacre at Wounded Knee in South Dakota. It was meant to be very pro-Native. Apparently, it was actually very offense to the Sioux that came in.
May 12, 2008 at 11:55 am
I selectively cull out an occasional, extraordinary piece (by the time #4 goes to school, it may be only one piece per year!), and the others get put in a stack where they marinate for a couple of days and I throw them out when the kids are at school (usu. on trash day). It sounds harsh, I know, but I’m drowning in paper, homework, posters, etc.
May 12, 2008 at 1:28 pm
I encourage the children to give “large pieces,” those things with wire, paper, modeling clay, duct tape, nails, etc…to family members as “gifts!” As to the paper stuff: we purchased a portfolio file (you know the envelopes that have a big rubber band around them?) and told the children they can only keep what will fit in those files. Anything not in the file is in the trash. The refrigerator is stainless steel and not exactly a good display place.
May 12, 2008 at 2:04 pm
I personally like the photograph idea. I have 8 kids who all love to draw and make projects. They also love to look at their pictures in their albums. Tada! Problem solved! I keep some of the better or most favorite ones and the rest leave the house, either in the house or to some unsuspecting relative. My mother is a pack rat. That helps.
Sharon
May 12, 2008 at 2:19 pm
Fire is always a good option. You can make smores.
May 12, 2008 at 2:32 pm
I knew I could depend on you, Father. I’ll send my children’s tears to you in a bag.
May 12, 2008 at 2:38 pm
I truly, truly can relate to this one! My current “plan” is to turn the house into a kindergarten gallery–but I really like the photo idea. Apparently when she gets to fourth grade she has to build a castle…
May 12, 2008 at 3:10 pm
I have saved a few of Paul’s most memorable projects. Fortunately, he manages to lose most of them on his own. He and his mother moved a few times while he was growing up, and that’s when things tend to get accidentally weeded out. Among the saved items, is a collection of colored hand prints from a preschool project, with the word “Friends.” There is also a comic strip he did when he was nine. Both will be framed and hanging in what is now the guest room, should he ever decide to return to the nest.
To know where you have been, is to better know where you are going. It is the role of a parent to facilitate that. Whether he or she admits it or not, a child remembers.
May 12, 2008 at 3:31 pm
I usually let them know before the school year starts that we won’t keep everything. Stuff given as gifts to their Mom and Dad (Christmas, Mother’s Day, etc.) is put in a box in the attic. Everything else is thrown away (usually when the little ones aren’t around to see – they rarely mention it again after bringing it home). If it is something they really like and don’t have room to keep, I take a digital photo of them with it that they can keep on the computer.
Its easy to get sentimental but after a while your house starts looking like the ones you see on tv where the owners haven’t thrown anything away in 30 years.
May 12, 2008 at 5:03 pm
I have the same problem with my family. All these suggestions are great. Thanks.
May 12, 2008 at 5:41 pm
Tears? No tears with smores.
May 12, 2008 at 6:05 pm
I’m all for rapid recycling when the kids aren’t looking. Though the suggestions here are great, especially selling on e-bay. Maybe they can earn their keep!
May 12, 2008 at 7:13 pm
Here’s the problem with selling them. I’m too greedy. I’d almost certainly set up a child labor facotry where I put my children and neighborhood children to work making cutesy projects in order for me to sell. I’m really quite terrible.
Seriously though, thank you everyone for your suggestions. I do appreciate them. ANd keep them coming.
May 12, 2008 at 7:54 pm
I cull also. I have framed a few of the ones I liked best. We have one of those art folder things for a few at the next level of coolness. The rest have long since been thrown out–along with math homework, etc. My oldest is now old enough to really love the fire idea. At the emd of the year we go to the park and rent a picnic shelter and burn a year’s worth of algebra! Very, very fun.
May 12, 2008 at 9:51 pm
We have an “Art gallery” in the kitchen that is always full. When something new goes on display, something old goes in the recycling bin.
I try to keep one masterpiece per month for each of the children in a binder. It is really neat to go through the binders every once in a while and see how much the kids are maturing.
As for sculptures and other large pieces — I let the kids play with them until they break. Then they get tossed.
And yes, I also take pictures of everything. But then again, I average 600 pictures per month, so I better have photos of everything.
I did keep the enormous cardboard crucifix that the kids made without any adult intervention.
May 12, 2008 at 11:08 pm
If you can cut the piece down to fit (8.5 x 11, let’s say), you can use it as background to pictures of the children, in a scrapbook. Thanksgiving pix can “float” on top of a turkey-made-from-a-hand-outline, for example.
May 13, 2008 at 3:59 am
My kids are a bit older now, so the rush has slowed.
But I made a deal with them a few years back: they could keep all the art they wanted, provided they could find a place for it in their art box or folder.
It’s amazing how easy it is for *them* to throw stuff away when they otherwise have to find a place to keep it!
That doesn’t stop me from secretly stashing a few things I want to keep, but it totally eliminates the mother-guilt over getting rid of “priceless” refrigerator art.
May 13, 2008 at 3:42 pm
Ahha, you have come to the right place for advise. I am a father of one (I know you must be thinking what can this guy offer). That being said you need to remove this to a storage area (make you children aware you are doing this). Then after some time has passed and the collection has risen you may dispose of these items. If you have an outside storage area the weather should take care of most of the work. You can simply then have no problems disposing of a project that has been destroyed by climate.