Ok this might be a bit long...
We moved and had a big clear out. Dds were very practical, kept one or two cuddly toys and seemed ready to let the others go. Ds found the whole process very hard. But we were literally submerged in the things and he understood the problem. 3 dc and 10 yrs of cuddly toys: I counted 9 big bin-liners of them!
Clearing them out was a relief because there was never anywhere for them all to go apart from the floor which was horrendously messy.
Ds kept more than dds, but was very good and only kept his favourites. All seemed ok because he still had quite a lot, I even vacuum bagged some of them so he could hang on to more and rotate them. All sorted, or so I thought..
Tonight he was in tears at bedtime, just quietly upset about one in paticular that he wishes he'd kept. This btw is 8 months after the clearout and is the first time he's mentioned it.
We had a chat and a cuddle but I can see it's on his mind. He's a lovely boy, very mature, happy at school, a delight in every way. But he does find it extremely hard to part with things esp things to do with being younger/a baby and cuddly toys in particular. I've even had problems before getting him to part with old clothes he's outgrown Given the chance he can be a terrible hoarder I guess.
Maybe I shouldn't have looked, but I notice the same toy is on Ebay for £20. I just know what dh would say: that ds is coming up for 12, that he'll get over it, that buying it is crazy after going to all the effort of clearing out all the clutter etc etc but he's more practicle about this stuff than me.
If I buy it, I wonder if ds'll be wanting everything he's ever parted with back. We really were drowning in them. I'm pretty laid back re dc/bit of chaos - that's understandable, but oh the mess before the clearout! Neither he, nor I could ever keep them tidied up, there were 100's and the mess made him unable to use his room.
I can't bear for ds to be sad, and yet should I be helping him to let things go or try and replace this for him? I wonder if it's because he's sensing he's growing up, is feeling a bit mixed up about it all and feels he's hanging on to something from a simpler time. Sats and secondary school loom large atm.
I'm absolutely sure all is well at school and with his friends, he's popular, settled and has no friendship problems. He can be a deep thinker though and mulls things over to a great extent.
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Do I replace this cuddly toy for ds aged 11?
16 replies
TomArchersSausage · 27/02/2013 00:31
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