5 Signs Your Child is Overwhelmed (and that Decluttering Might be the Solution)

With many of the families and classrooms that I work with, one of the biggest things that the adults want to find a solution to is the way children are interacting in the learning/play environment. Children are being aggressive with each other or with the toys and materials they have. Children seem generally unhappy or have unusually short attention spans. Children aren’t showing any real interests or don’t want to participate in the activities that parents/teachers are setting up for them.

And almost always this can be traced back to one thing – clutter in the environment.

You see, when a space has too much available or feels disorganized, it can cause children to feel overwhelmed, which leads to frustration, disconnect, acting out, or destructive behavior. Clutter can actually trigger a fight or flight response in children (and adults too!) which is the exact opposite of engagement and creativity.

Here are a few signs that your child might be showing you that they’re suffering from an overwhelmed feeling in their environment:

✨ They act or tell you they’re bored.

“How can they be bored if they have a million things to choose from?” you might ask. It’s the same feeling as when you have 150 things on your to-do list and the thought of even starting with one thing is so overwhelming that you just Netflix and chill instead. Too many options causes overwhelm which causes a mental shutdown.

Note: This is NOT the same as general boredom. Yes, it’s ok for kids to just be bored sometimes – it encourages creativity and resiliency. But if they’re consistently saying they’re bored and there are far too many options available, it’s probably a sign of something deeper.

✨ There’s tons of sibling rivalry. 

A little bit of spatting is totally normal, but if you feel like you’re living in a WWE reality show lately…. they’re probably feeling overwhelmed and overstimulated. A lot of times in families with multiple children, parents feel the need to offer more toys and opportunities (or an equal number of the same toy/resource for each set of hands) purely because of having more bodies in the space. This is not always necessary and can even add to the chaos. Children learn communication skills, patience, and collaboration when they have to wait to use something or share with someone else.