Moving is always a lot of work but it’s even more-so when you have children. Believe it or not, though, there are ways to encourage your children to help, and they might even have fun.
How to make moving fun for children
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Arm yourself with lots and lots of colorful sticky notes
Ask your children what they love and don’t love about their current room, what are they too grown up for now? Ask them to color-code their items. Green could mean keep, red could mean donate and blue could mean not sure. let them pick the colors. You may find that they feel they are growing out of a lot of their toys, they just haven’t gotten around to telling you.
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Take pictures of their new rooms
Have them make a drawing of where they would like to put their furniture and larger toys. Ask them where they would hang pictures. It will give them some ownership of the rooms before you even move in.
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Make a donation pile
Even donating can be fun and interactive for children. Explain that their old toys and clothes will go to a younger child who can’t afford as many nice things. Take your children to the thrift store, if you drop off, and tell them you’ll go back after the move, to see what they might want.
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Let them pack
While this might seem like a really bad idea, kids can’t go too wrong packing books, clothing and toys. All you need to do is put together the boxes, let them know what types of things go into what boxes (books in small, book boxes, clothing and toys in medium boxes). Even if they pack just one box a day each, they’ll take pride in the fact that they are helping.
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Take them shopping after the move
We know that there are a lot of costs involved in moving, so major shopping sprees might be out, but you can still take them thrift shopping, or just let them pick out one small item for their new rooms.
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