What is the most common short answer to the question, how are you? Busy. I think a lot of us are.” - Jeff Shinabarger.Īnd by our own accounts, many families are broke, time-wise. Isn’t that a worthwhile cause? It’s Time to Stop Being Broke. The chaos is leading to an epidemic of stress and anxiety in childhood.”īecoming a minimalist family gives you the tools to filter out the clutter and chaos causing stress and anxiety in your child’s life. So let’s say we start saying “no” to always being connected, and always doing, and honor each other’s right to do the same?ĭenaye Barahona Ph.D., a Family Wellness expert at Simple Families and author of the foreword for my new book, says, “The world our children are growing up in today isn’t just cluttered, it’s chaotic. The desire to do more keeps our family doing just that-more-counting the things we do instead of doing the things that count. If your family is living like it’s an iPhone-always on, always connected, with an app for whatever needs to be done-you’re sure to be drained. Studies have shown that parental stress depletes their immune systems, weakens children’s brains, and increases their risk of obesity and mental illness just to name a few.īecoming a minimalist family helps you and your kids let go of the things creating undue stress in your family’s lives. The kids’ number one wish was that their parents were less tired and less stressed. In a survey of a thousand families, Ellen Galinsky, the head of the Families and Work Institute, asked children, “If you were granted one wish about your parents, what would it be?” Most parents thought their kids would say spending more time with them, but they were wrong. Minimalism is for everyone, for families: small families, large families, especially for families.įamilies need minimalism too. Minimalism isn’t just reserved for the single, the college student, the baby boomers, and people who seem to live a less complicated life than you do. ![]() When your family is living in the land of tired-busy-and-overwhelmed, the first step is almost always less. Clutter is anything-good, bad, or indifferent-that distracts you from a more meaningful and intentional life. Overwhelm.Ĭlutter takes many forms-it finds its way onto our calendars and to-do lists, it leads us to Pinterest perfection, fear of missing out, mindless scrolling, and constant discontent. Clutter is anything that does not support your better self.” Clutter. It’s old ideas, toxic relationships, and bad habits. But I was learning, as Eleanor Brownn once said, “Clutter is not just physical stuff. Hadn’t I gotten rid of all my clutter? Indeed I had. In this stress and overwhelm, my desire for simplicity was born.Īt every opportunity, I peeled away the layers of my clutter-the broken stuff, the perfectly good stuff, and the sentimental stuff.Įventually, my useful things now all had a home with room to breathe! With an uncluttered home, I spent less time looking for and taking care of my things and more time doing things I love. ![]() It was during this move that the real cost of my clutter started becoming painfully obvious. Or in my case, until you try to put it in a box for the 10th time with kids in tow. “You never realize how much stuff you have until you try to put it in a box,” Allison Fallon once said. ![]() During one deployment to Africa, despite our careful planning, the kids and I were left alone to pack up and move everything while he was gone. Seven years ago, my husband was in the military.
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