Toy Declutter - Part 1
Stuffed Animals Galore!
Children’s toys is a major source of clutter and overwhelm for many parents and families. There is a lot of good advice and solutions out there: so much, in fact, that this is only part 1 of the information.
Start with your own clutter
Wise wisdom is to begin cluttering your own things. Many of us have decided to start decluttering based on our partner or children’s belongings that we see stacked up all around us, however if we look more closely, we often have too much ourselves. Starting with decluttering your own things is a model for children and fodder for discussion. As you begin to see personal benefits, you will feel less stressed and ready to assist others in decluttering, especially children.
Children’s personalities
Children have different personalities when it comes to their things. My son holds on to every seashell, pencil, and scrap of paper. My daughter responds “get rid of it” even to items she plays with often, leading my son to rescue her cast-offs from the donation pile. Obviously it is ideal for your children to declutter with you. However, certain personalities make this very difficult to do. With time, even my son has come around and now is able to get rid of many unwanted items with my help.
Where are the toys?
Consider where toys are located in your home. Where do you and your children play with the toys? Where do you want them to play with their toys. When my children were very young I did not keep toys in their bedrooms because we never played in their bedrooms. I limited the amount of toys in the living room because I wanted it to be a peaceful place. Most of the toys were in our playroom area. Before decluttering it can be helpful to gather toys into one or two areas as much as possible. If kids want to play in an area that is not a playroom, they will generally bring a few toys to that space which can easily be returned. It is not necessary to have a huge toy bin in every room. Gathering toys into one or two areas, such as a playroom and children’s bedrooms, can help see how many you have of each item (50 barbies?! 400 tiny cars?!).
Very Young Children
If your children are very young, 0-4 years old or so, most of the time you will need to declutter for them. This is not different than all the other decisions you make for their care and well-being. You select which foods to buy from the grocery store and offer them, you choose which clothes are available for them to wear, you choose where they go and who they are with.
Research has shown that children only play with a fraction of their toys. First, observe your child or children for about a week. Note which toys they play with repeatedly, their favorites. Then you remove and box up the rest of the toys. I suggest keeping these boxes in a long-term storage area of your home for a month or two, in case a specific item is missed by your child, you can bring it back. After that time period, you can donate or toss as appropriate. It’s best to sort directly into these two categories (garbage, donate) at the time you declutter, so you do not need to reopen the boxes/bags later. You can date them to help you remember how long it’s been.
This is very important, Santa-level important, you can NEVER reveal where the boxed up toys are located or even that they are still around. I have heard horror stories of children locating the boxes and opening them. If a child asks for an item specifically, you might say something like, “Hmmmm, where did that teddy bear go? I will try to look for him tonight…” or tomorrow while you are at school/day care/grandma’s and then the teddy bear magically reappears.
Toy Rotation
If this sounds too harsh to you, or you truly want your child to be able to play with all the awesome toys that folks have bought for them but have too much, consider a toy rotation. This is more ‘stuff management’ than simply decluttering (getting it gone!), but it may work for you and your family. You can notify your children that you are doing a toy rotation. You will have an amount of toys out for a few months and then you will put those away and get out another ‘set’ of toys to play with for a few months. This reduces the clutter in your day-to-day living space and results in much quicker and easier pick-up at the end of the day. Again, I recommend NEVER telling your children where the toy rotation boxes are kept.
What to Keep
Okay, you’ve put aside their favorites to keep, but there’s a whole lotta toys left. How do you separate what to keep and what to get rid of? First, get rid of anything that is super annoying or that you don’t like to play with. As long as they don’t seem to play with it much, just get it out of there. After that, consider open-ended vs. close-ended toys. Open-ended toys are ones that can be used multiple ways such as in playing pretend and spark creativity. Art supplies, building blocks, magnetic tiles, dress-up clothes, doctors kits, and dolls and figurines are examples. Closed-ended toys are ones that can only be used one way and often children become bored with them after they master the skill or activity. Examples are puzzles, books, shape-sorters and many electronic toys. This is the difference between a piece of paper (open-ended) and a coloring book (close-ended) Consider keeping mostly open-ended toys with some close-ended ones sprinkled in.
Consider the quantity of toys and how they are used. If your child has 30 dress-up outfits, but can only wear one at a time and are a pain to clean up, consider dropping this to 15 favorites. Then in the future, you may be able to further reduce them again to 10 or even 5, depending on your child. 30 pretend food items items however, might be just right if your child loves to play restaurant every day.
Your children will grow and develop quickly and their interest in certain toys and topics will change, their play environment should change accordingly.
How Much to Box Up
This is a moment to be reasonable. The goal is to teach them about the benefits of letting go and having a peaceful environment, not to make them sad about losing beloved items. If your child has a whole playroom of toys, a reasonable goal might be to box up and remove 25% or 50% of what’s there. Then after 6 months, you might be able to remove more. It would be unfair to leave children with only a binful of toys after having so much.
One strategy can be to use space as a container. For example, perhaps you have a large shelving unit to hold the toys. Place the items you want on the large shelving unit, then after the shelves are full, box up the rest.
If it takes too long to clean up in the evening, you still have too many items out. It may take several rounds of decluttering over time to get to your goal. Decluttering is often described like peeling an onion, each time you are able to remove more and more.
Toy clutter = visual overwhelm
Too many toys is overwhelming mentally and visually for children and adults alike, however it is so ‘normal’ and commonplace that most of us don’t know what it feels like to not have that stressed out buzz going on in our minds. Once you reduce the toys in your home, you will begin to feel calmness and peace. These moments may be short at first, but over time and with more decluttering they will increase.
Make sure that children take responsibility for their toys by participating in clean up. Even toddlers can help an adult pick up toys. Children won’t care how long cleanup takes if a parent is always doing it for them. Commit to cleaning up to 1 fun song at the end of playtime, or setting a 5 minute timer and stick to it until it becomes routine.
You can reinforce living with less in your statements every day. “Isn’t is great we have less toys and can clean up so fast so we can get to the park quicker?” “Isn’t it nice to have fewer toys so you have a large space you can play in your room?” and “I’m so glad we don’t have too many toys so that we could find your favorite doll easily!”