Is it wrong to throw away our children’s artwork?

June 20, 2023 Karen 8 comments

This was a question I was asked by a friend: Well when my children were young and went to a pre-school group they would come home with arm fulls of paintings, drawings and other delightful items that they had made; it would have been impossible to keep them all, so I will admit that I did throw several away.

I can remember my youngest son putting something into the pedal bin in our kitchen and on seeing his painting in there, he looked at me and said, “Mummy, I made that for you and you’ve thrown it away!”

I did feel guilty and told him that from now on I would let him choose a few of his best works of art that I would keep after explaining that I wouldn’t be able to keep them all.

I had done this with my older children’s artwork too.

Ironically the folder in which I put this ‘special’ artwork in went astray when we moved house.

When I was working as a registered child minder we often did arts and crafts here

One afternoon we were doing some junk modelling and one child created a rather large impressive model which she proudly showed here mum at the end of the day.

The following morning when she arrived she told me that her mummy had tossed her model into a skip while walking to the car, telling her that they weren’t taking Karen’s rubbish home with them.

Are you also guilty of disposing of your children’s artwork or do you keep and treasure every piece?

Please share any thoughts and experiences.

Uantil next time.

K aren

x

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8 Comments on “Is it wrong to throw away our children’s artwork?

  1. I love that you brought this up! I am guilty of throwing away my kids’ artwork, but I also keep some as well. If there is something they are particularly proud of, or worked really hard on, I keep that stored away. We can’t keep everything, although sometimes I wish we could as the feeling I get throwing things away that they worked so hard on is awful! I created “memory boxes” for my kids, and I keep a few of their favorite things in their memory boxes, along with school reports, metals, awards and other achievements. If you want to check it out, go to https://perfectlyimperfect-lwl.com/day-24-organizing-family-paperwork-and-mail/.

  2. I used to keep everything when my girls were little, partly to spare their feelings and partly because I felt guilty parting with anything. When they were older we went through everything and they agreed a lot of it was not worth keeping. 90% of the artwork went in the bin but we kept the good ones and I still have them now.

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