The Struggle is Real
Attention single dads! Are you looking to create a minimalist lifestyle for your kids? Look no further! We’ve got some little-known tips that will help you achieve that goal. Don’t miss out on the chance to simplify your life and provide a calm and clutter-free environment for your children. Try these tips out today!
The idea of having less in a world hellbent on surplus is scary to some people, especially children. Somehow as a dad, you have to convey the notion that less is okay and prove it to your family.
So the challenge is, where do you begin? Do you run roughshod over all your family’s wants, needs, and desires and immediately empty their bedrooms and closet spaces? Do you force them to donate half their wardrobe to the Salvation Army or Goodwill? Do you raid their shoe closet and rid them of extra pairs of Nike and Adidas running shoes?
First Steps to Family-Oriented Minimalism
Where you begin sets the stage for how much your children buy into the idea of minimalism. This is not the time to force your will as Dad, but rather use the idea of travel and explorations as a means to lessen your burden of stuff you have. If you cannot take it with you, why even have it?
This is the time to inform through practice and example.
It’s best to start with your items or at the very least with common area items of which you have the bulk of control. For example, you can start in a family room, TV room, or even the dining room.
However, if you start with your items you need to show your children – and sometimes your girlfriend – that minimizing your things is not a painful experience. Rather it is a joyful experience because you are lifting a huge weight off your mental and emotional shoulders. Fewer items mean less maintenance for those items. That means less protection, less washing, less dry cleaning, and less storage.
Minimalism starts in the closet
A good place to start is within your closet. Be honest with yourself. You likely have clothes that you haven’t worn in years or items you’ve held onto while hoping to lose another 15 pounds so that you can wear them again.
The fundamental idea behind minimalism is not to hold on to those things because they keep you in the past and not the present. That’s the problem with old things and too many things. Things have emotions attached to them.
So rather than living and dwelling in the present, we hold on to things that for some reason keep our attention focused on the Past. Unfortunately, the past is not always the ideal place to be.
Once you start addressing the needs of your wardrobe, the second step towards adopting a minimalist lifestyle home is to make sure that the wardrobe you’re keeping satisfies multiple needs.
One way to do this is to make sure that the bulk of your pants and shirts are interchangeable. That means you can wear a shirt with many different colors of pants or jeans. And vice versa.
The other thing to ensure is that you should have as sufficient a wardrobe for work as you do for play. It’s also good to leave room for casual loungewear at home. The key to minimizing your wardrobe is to not hold on to anything you don’t use.
If you have a doubt, through it out – or repurpose it through donations and giveaways. You can apply the same tactics as you do with your junk drawer. If something is in your junk drawer and you haven’t seen it or used it in the past year that’s good evidence that you can get rid of it.
The same thing applies to your shirts, your ties, your shoes, your pants, your jeans, your hats, and your overcoats.
Free your closet and Minimalism will follow.
Let your children see you happily pack these things away and rejoice as you free up room in your closet by taking these items to the local donation center. You may even have a small celebration or glass of wine to toast your achievement and share it with your children without asking them to do the same.
The key here is to allow them to see you make this sacrifice without complaining and without begging them to make similar sacrifices. There is breathing time required.
And by that I mean your children need to watch you, process what you’ve done, and then consider how they can follow in your footsteps – without any pressure from you.
Eliminate the Family Room
Another area you can address to design a minimalist lifestyle home for your family is the Family Room. The Family Room often becomes the “junk drawer” of the house. Your kids will leave their school books, your friend will leave her purse or a spare umbrella.
You often leave extra electronics in that room too. This includes remote controls, old game consoles, and extra televisions. This is a good time to minimize your carbon footprint by getting rid of devices that require batteries.
You can switch to rechargeable batteries for all your items. Extra televisions that you’re holding onto for some strange reason can be donated to a local charity or ditched in the electronics recycling stations.
You don’t need extra armchairs for company just in case. You don’t need extra tables, you don’t need extra items on the wall for decoration that no one bothers to dust.
This is also a good time for redecorating. Take a moment to redesign the layout of your living area for the family and add a little bit of Feng Shui to the equation.
Additionally, this is a good time to get rid of all the periodicals, magazines, and old newspapers that for some reason you keep in the coffee table drawer. This may be a good time to get rid of that old coffee table and the old end tables that no one likes.
Drive Away Opposition to Minimalist Buy-in
Remember the choices you make will either assist or inhibit buy-in from the rest of the family. You have to set the stage for how you want your family’s transition to minimalism to go. Choose your items carefully and allow your actions and the joy behind your actions to speak for themselves.
One last hack to assist your family and adopt a minimalist lifestyle for the home is to clean out your car. Cars are rolling trash cans for most families. We throw things in the trunk, pack things away in the hatchback, or store things unnecessarily in the truck bed.
When you get rid of these items not only will you feel much better because you know where things are – like your registration and insurance card – but you might even end up saving a few dollars every year in gas money because your vehicle weighs less.
Again the idea behind this is to allow your family to see your clear and pleasant transition to minimalism and your willingness to sacrifice to have an unfettered perspective.
A minimalist lifestyle is all about letting go of the clutter that bogs down our minds, our health, our psyche, and our thoughts. Out of sight out of mind. Let those things go, cast them away and you never have to think about them again.
As you continue the process from an individual standpoint you can enlist help from your children and then see how much they’ve learned from you. There’s bound to be some influence and your children are likely to want to follow in your footsteps.
However, is very important to keep in mind that children today are very different from their parents growing up. The focus and the priorities in their lives are very different from ours.
Dads should not belittle or berate their kids because they cannot yet fathom their priorities in life. If something is drastically important to them, let it go and choose another area to ask them to minimize.
Move Minimalism from the Subconscious to Conscious
When you are designing a minimalist lifestyle home you have to pick and choose your battles for battle. With a little effort, and a lot of patience and time you may see your family become cheerleaders for minimalism, and even subconsciously adopt some of the techniques that you’ve shown them.
Keep encouraging them, and keep a positive attitude. No one has to completely downsize in one day. A protracted journey to minimalism can be as rewarding as the final destination.