^{This transcript is auto-generated. Please excuse grammatical errors.}

Diana Rene: 0:06 

You're listening to the decluttered mom podcast, a podcast built specifically for busy moms by a busy mom. I'm your host, diana Renee, and in 2017, i had my second daughter and it felt like I was literally drowning in my home Okay, not literally, but I felt like I couldn't breathe with all of the stuff surrounding me. Over the next 10 months, i got rid of approximately 70% of our household belongings and I have never looked back. I kind of feel like I hacked the mom system and I'm here to share all the tips, tricks and encouragement. Let's listen to today's show.

Welcome to another episode of the decluttered mom podcast. I wanted to share a clip with you from when Miss Six was newly four She had just turned four And first of all, listening to audio of her tiny little voice when she had just turned four and she was in speech for gosh, how long was she in speech? She was in speech for about four years and she was in occupational therapy for about a year and a half. So just hearing her little words is just so cute and sweet and brings me back. But that's not the point of this podcast.

I wanted to share this clip with you because when I first was going through my whole decluttering journey. She was a baby. She was a brand new baby. She was only about three months old when I first started the process, and so she had zero clue about what was going on. However, miss Nine, my nine year old, was three at the time, and so she had already developed a lot of attachment to things and had never seen me let go of physical items. She had never seen me go through the process before, we had never talked about it before, and even though she was only three, there was already some things that I had to work with her on, on being able to let go, and even now, at age nine, she does great with it. You can hear her on a previous episode where she gives great tips and advice to other kids who are going through the process with their parents, but she still. It's always been a little bit harder with her than with my youngest, who she just doesn't. She's never known any different. She has never experienced a life where you know we're living with excess and we're not regularly letting go of things, and having systems in the home Like this is just how things have always been for her, because she was so little when we started And because of that, her ability to let go just amazes me like every day. And when I noticed, when she was three or four, she started bringing things to me and she would just walk up to me and hand it to me and she'd say, hey, mom, can you donate this? Because she was done with it, like it was a toy that she didn't really like or she didn't really play with very much, and so she would just bring it to me and say, hey, can we donate this? And I was like hold on, like what's happening here, like I don't understand this behavior, and I just, the more and more I see her grow

And the more and more I work with women inside my program who have, you know, babies when they're going through the process. And then, you know, the program has been going now for five years, which is bananas to me. But so I'm seeing that in members of the program too who was like kids were babies, and now they're a little bit older and they're developing this same type of mindset And I think it's beautiful.

So first, before I talk about this entire thing, let's play This clip, and it's very short, but this is from when she had just turned four. Okay, so you don't like that game anymore. What do you think we should do with that? Maybe donate it to somebody? Donate it to somebody, that's a good idea, so you can see. Okay, first of all, isn't her voice just the cutest little thing in the world? So you can see and that or not see? but you can hear in that audio that it was just very nonchalant, like it took her half a second to think about it and maybe donate it Like. Can you imagine having that capability now as an adult, as you are going through the decluttering process where you're just like This is a game I don't really play with anymore, i'll donate it, like she was just so, like whatever it. Just that's what you do if you don't play with the game anymore. And I think my favorite part of it is that she, like it was like instant where she, like was going moving on something else. You know, i said I think that's a great idea and she said thanks, hey, mama, and then, like, went into something else. So it was like she wasn't even phased by. It wasn't something that she struggled with. It wasn't something where she was like Oh, i don't know. I don't know what we should do with that which which we see in kids a lot, and so Why I wanted to make this episode is because if you have babies, you have really little ones at home who do not understand the concept of decluttering or home management or just anything in that realm, because they're so little. You have such a gift like Staring you in the face.

And I hope that if you have older kids, you do not take this as a discouraging episode or like It's not gonna happen for your kids, because that's not true. We have members go through my program who have teenagers and they are able to work with them on developing new habits and learning how to let go, and I mean the women in my program are learning how to let go when they're 20, 30, 40, 50, 60, 70 years old, and so you can learn how to let go at any point in your life. But I just really wanted to stress the the point that when you have really tiny humans in your home, you are in such a good place to be able to instill the type of thought process and the mindset that will serve them amazingly for their entire life and they will likely Never struggle with clutter to the point that you may, and maybe not ever really struggle with clutter at all. Because if you are able to develop these skills and you are able to, number one, display that for them, be that you know they, they are seeing that in you, but then, number two, actively working with it or working on it with them From a very young age, you are just in a great, great, great, great position to be able to set them up for never having to deal with the burden of clutter and the burden of excess and the burden of the overwhelming feeling in your home, because they will have that amazing foundation where they just don't know any different, right? So a good example of this is my nine year old. I think I've talked about it on here before, i know I've talked about it on Instagram, but she has severe food allergies. She is severely allergic to peanuts and basically all tree nuts except coconut. So she has dealt with this since she was a baby. Like she was 14 months old when she first was diagnosed with her peanut allergy and then the tree nuts were a little bit closer to age two, but they were both still at an age where she didn't know any different, like it just wasn't. It was not on her radar that she's like oh, i can't go to a restaurant and have a salad with tree nuts, like it was. you know what I mean, like it? just the only thing that she really ate regularly before her diagnosis was Nutella. She really was a big fan of Nutella, but now she's allergic to hazelnut so she can't have it. But that was really the only thing, and she was still so little that she just it's not something that she misses because she was so little when she got the diagnosis. And so now, as a nine year old, is it a struggle sometimes because she's reminded on a daily basis that she has something that makes her different. She can't always have the same treats as the other kids at school or birthday parties or things like that. So, yeah, there are those things that are like growing pains with the allergy. But she was just recently diagnosed with celiac disease And that means she can have no gluten And if she has gluten, it damages her intestinal tract And so, which can cause all sorts of issues for her, immediately symptom wise, and then down the road for like big scary things. So she can't even have like cross contamination, she cannot have any gluten in her system. And this is new and she's nine years old and the level of adjustment is like a thousand times more than when she was diagnosed with her food allergies, because she just didn't know any different. She didn't. That just is what her life has been since she was a baby, and so she doesn't know any different, and so it just it is what it is. But with celiacs, she knows what mac and cheese tastes like, she knows. She knows what you know a happy meal is like. She knows good pizza, she knows these things. And so, while it's a similar adjustment as far as like don't eat nuts and don't eat gluten, it's a completely different game. It's a lot harder for her to come to terms with, it's a lot harder for her to adjust to, and I think it's very similar to when we're talking about decluttering. And if we, if you have little ones I just can't stress this enough that you just have a gift waiting for you to be able to help them through this process at such a young age, if you are willing to take the steps and you are willing to learn how to let go yourself and how to utilize the tools for them too. My last note is that, again, i know I said this earlier, but if you do have older kids, please do not take this as a discouraging episode, because there are so many ways to work with older kids and there are so many ways that we can help teach them and we can help them learn on their own also. It's I just wanted to stress the fact that it's just if you have babies, you have, like a golden opportunity to be able to really help them before they learn anything else. So this was a rather short episode, but that's okay. I hope it was helpful for you. I would love to hear if it was. If you shoot me a DM on Instagram or if you put up a story and tag me in it. I always love, love, love to see where you guys are listening to the podcast. So I will talk to you in the next episode.

Thanks for hanging out and listening to the Decluttered Mom Podcast. If you enjoyed this episode, it would mean the world If you could write a review or share this episode with a friend or your Instagram stories. And if you're on Instagram, be sure to follow me at thedeclutteredmom and send me a DM to say hi. I'd love to hear what you thought about today's episode. I hope you'll come back next week and hang out with us again.