To not be able to throw out these things .....

[melody44]

Am having major house clearout after moving to smaller house a year ago. It was a big move for us and DCs have coped admirably with all the upheaval. DCs have been packed off to GPs to give me space to get on with it.

Have ruthlessly ditched books, clothes, records, cassettes, mountains of toys.

Floors are clear, shelves have been put up, all is like House Beautiful photoshoot except for ....

..... 2 bulging carrier bags full of books, drawings, paintings that DCs brought home at the end of the summer after their first year at their new school. Have now spent an hour going through it all, marvelling at how amazing my DCs are and realising how much time and effort they have put into it all.

I can't bring myself to throw any of it away but know in my heart of hearts that if I keep it all & it accumulates at same annual rate, in 4 years time will have to build annex in garden to accomodate it all.

How can I choose between "A Day in the Life of a Victorian child" and "An Interview with Mother Thereasa" ......

I keep mostly everything that comes home from school unless it's a tiny scriblble on the page, if it's flat it goes in to a folder ina plastic wallat thing and it it's bigger it goes in their special box which is just a clear toy box thing.

But grograg - how old are your DCs. How big is your box. Have you got v big house? My DCs yr 3 & 5 had 15 A4 excercise books plus about a 2 inch thick folder of loose stuff ....

For drawings etc could you take a pic of the work and save them on an external hard drive/photo site eg picasa, then bin them without guilt?

Or you could post a few art works off to GPs and other relatives every now and again, just to keep them moving on.

How old are the DCs? Could you ask them to take responsibility for their own project work, give them a reasonably sized storage box to keep things in and they decide which to keep and which to let go.

Throw away all the maths & science books, keep one English/writing/History book that has particular "ahhhh" factor from each plus any particularly good bits of artwork. Get artwork framed simply for child room or hall.

You have to be ruthless, but YANBU it's SO hard!!!

Having just thrown out about fifty half-empty exercise books from DCs years 6, 7, 8, 9 ... (you get the picture) I sympathise.

Like grograg, we have moved on to folders with clear plastic pages for preserving special certificates, drawings, pieces of work, poems, nice letters, etc., and a couple of shoes boxes each for special objects. I also have a larger portfolio (in the sense of the big A1 art folder with a string tie) for larger pieces of work - inlcuding some of mine from years gone by!

I also ask the DC during a clear-out if there's anything special they want to keep. They're rarely bothered about a lot of school stuff, but they do like to hang on to the odd drawing, photo, concert tickets and school play scripts.

You're right - we can't keep it all.

Keep a couple of the really best things and take photos of the rest.

Keep them. If the thought of throwing them out causes you distress, then that's a sign that you ought to keep them. Put them in a flat box with a lid under the bed or in the loft. As they get older you will probably not want to keep everything. I second the idea about throwing maths books etc and keeping stories and poems.

LRWM - totally sympathise re the half empty excercise books - why do schools do that?

During clear out have come across some of my old school books and we had the same excercise book for the same subject all the way through junior school. My "Scripture" books covers 4 years (maybe explains limited knowledge of Bible).

Queue Tory-esque calculation here about how many £millions would be saved if we added up all those unused pages .......

Some good ideas here ladies - am mulling them over:

Taking photos - tempting but am resisting that - another job have got on list this week is to go through hundreds and thousands of photos that DP has taken over last few years as laptop hard disc is almost full...

Letting DCs choose - scary. They are more indecisive than me and will probably just take all out of boxes, strew all over House beautiful floor and then go off to play outside/ move onto other room in house to make other mess

Putting under bed - also tempting but under bed already occupied by giant suitcases full of DP's books that do not fit on shelves

THrow out maths stuff - also tempting but a part of me feels that maths should not be junked in favour of cuddly arty creative stuff (am a scientist by training).

Argh

I get a piece of A2, fold it in half and staple the sides to make a folder. Thats all I allow myself to keep. I only keep the things that I think DD might like when she gets older, so her 'What I did at the weekend' type things get put through automatically.

Then I get rid of any scruffy half finished work/pictures or ones that I know she has done a lot of at home.

I only keep workbooks if they are particularly good work i.e. the teacher has actually commented rather than just ticking.

If my folder at the end is too full I go back with a harder heart.

We have a tiny house and I'd love to keep it all but its not really possible. Also my mother kept all of my work and gave it to me recently. The only stuff I kept was similar to what I keep of DD's and the rest went in the recycling. I try and keep that in mind when I am going through DD's stuff.

DD couldn't care less. Occasionally she wants to keep a picture or two and I give them to her to put on her bedroom walls. Once there are too many then she is very good at picking out the ones she is less fond of and puts them in the bin.

interested to hear that DCs are tougher than parents - maybe its getting older that's making me more sentimental. Also I have hardly anything from my younger years - family home sold and all cleared, lots of stuff I kept got destroyed in a flood and both DPs now dead so no one to ask.

Since the DCs started school have constantly wondered whether they are doing more or less than I did at their age or what I did when I was their age but its all lost in the mists of time.

On the other hand the experience of having to clear out all the stuff from family home has made me vow never to accumulate such a pile again. Maybe that's why books etc are easier to ditch - you can always get them from library but pieces of your past - they are harder.