Toy Declutter - Part 2
Children’s Toy Declutter Part 1 had a lot of general information and some tips to help with younger children. Part 2 has even more information and focuses on a bit older children, school age and beyond. Read on for some great tips and tricks.
Start with a conversation
With older children, it’s important to get some buy-in from them. If they are still young enough to enjoy reading looking at picture books together, I recommend Llama Llama Mess Mess Mess by Anna Dewdny (for youngest readers) and The Berenstain Bears and the Messy Room by Stan and Jan Berenstain (I just checked Amazon, and there’s even a Spanish edition). When I just searched “childrens messy room book” on Amazon, quite a few others came up as well. I prefer the clutter-free options of checking the books out of my local library or looking for a video of the book being read aloud on youtube.
Starting off with a book can create an opening for what might be a difficult situation. Reminding everyone that it is normal and common to have a messy room, it is normal and common for parents to care more than kids and there are ways to find a happy middle ground. Talking calmly with kids allows them to think about what they want to do and ask questions without fear of being yelled at or getting in trouble. Letting them know you would like to help and support them through this process is very meaningful.
Another interesting conversation starter is the artwork Where Children Sleep by James Mollison. Together we flipped through these pictures and discussed how much we have versus how much others have. Sometimes children like the idea of sending a toy away to someone who doesn’t have toys and will love that toy very much.
The Toy Story movies can also be beneficial. Young children still believe in the magic that everything is alive. Stating that the toy doesn’t want to sit around in a closet unused and would prefer to go find a home where they will be loved and played with all the time can be a powerful motivator.
Recently my son said that he rarely plays with his Pokemon cards and Bakugan anymore, but he was afraid his dad would be mad if he got rid of them because he spent good money on them. My son feeling comfortable enough to tell me this allowed me to mention it to my husband who then had a talk with our son to let him know that it was perfectly okay to let things go once we were done with them. They came up with a plan to take the cards to the game store to see if they were worth anything and would buy them back.
When to declutter
The key to decluttering with older children is routine. If you only try it once it will be unsuccessful and you will throw your hands up and say “that didn’t work”! We tend to have at least 2 regular cleanouts a year and then others as needed, depending a lot on the influx of new toys. We declutter before Christmas and before birthdays. The children usually have good buy-in because we are making room for new and exciting toys to arrive either from Santa or from birthday celebrations. Figure out when you are receiving new toys and get your children to clean out in the weeks prior to that.
If you constantly have toys coming in, the challenge may be the person buying the toys. Talk to them and encourage them to reduce toy buying to special occasions.
Years ago, my son was terrible at decluttering and hated getting rid of anything. Now he welcomes it and even asks for my help cleaning his room during which we make a big pile of items to trash or donate. We generally also have to do this after the school year ends because he brings many random items home from his desk and locker.
With routine decluttering, decision-making gets easier and children (and adults) learn that they do not actually miss the items that they let go of. This allows them to make decisions more confidently again in the future and this cycle reinforces itself with positive feelings.
How to declutter exactly?
When decluttering, the usual strategy is to take everything out, make a decision about each item and then put away what you are keeping in an organized fashion. Sometimes the items are already out and then I just slowly go through items one by one from the floor. I hold them up and ask the children if they want to keep or donate it. I never ask them to trash it unless it’s clearly broken or torn, children usually love their toys very much and want to think of them going to a good home.
If the children seem to be keeping everything, which totally happens, you can switch your line of questioning to “which ones are your favorites”? Or similarly, “which ones do you play with the most”? In this case, it is most helpful to line up all the same type of toys and then say how much you want to keep. For example, lining up all the barbies and then stating, “we can keep half, which of them are your favorites” and then the child starts grabbing their favorites out of the pile and you donate the rest. Remember to be reasonable, if they have 20 Barbies, reducing to 10 is significant, reducing to 1 would be brutal and unfair.
Sometimes when children say to keep an item that I know they don’t use often, I will follow up with the question “how often do you play with that”? Or “when’s the last time you played with that”? They will often grin sheepishly and sometimes will allow me to donate the item. Other times, you may have to wait for the next decluttering session, which is part of why routine sessions are important. As children get older, they realize that they are growing out of certain toys and will be ready to discard things that they wanted to keep in the past.
How much to keep?
Allow your space to dictate how much to keep. If you have a designated shelf, certain bins or other area, fill that area or those containers to a comfortable fullness and then stop. If you live in a smaller home, this means that you likely will have less space to dedicate to toys than if you live in a larger home. Allowing the space to let you know how much to keep will be much more pleasant and comfortable than trying to fit way too many toys in not enough space. Your children will appreciate the ease of putting things away and not having a cluttered space.
Many, if not most, of us have too much stuff. Even if a type of toy is a favorite and played with often, there can be too much. When cleaning my daughter’s room last summer, I got rid of about half of her Barbie clothes. She loves Barbies and we play with them almost every night before bed, however after several rounds of birthdays and holidays, she had way too much. There are only so many outfits and shoes that you can handle in a play session, the non-favorite ones just become clutter and debris. She didn’t even notice that I had cleared out half the clothing because there was still plenty left to choose from.
Cars, legos, pokemon cards and almost anything children collect can easily become too much and overwhelming. As Joshua Becker says, “experiment with less”! You always have the opportunity to box items up and set them aside for a few weeks or months to see if your child even misses them. Be sure to date the box and get rid of it after a few months if they didn’t need anything from it.
How to organize toys
Sometimes moms reach out to me and are frustrated that children cannot maintain the elaborate organization system that they have developed. According to Cassandra Aarssen (“Clutterbug”) there are 4 distinct organizing personalities (you can jump over to her website and take the quiz). While you may like detailed organizing and visual simplicity (and this can be perfect for your personal items), many children need broad categories and visual cues to help them. Some folks are “out of sight, out of mind” people and others want everything hidden away. Your goal is to create an organizational system that works for your children.
For many kids, they don’t care what items go in which bins. Changing your expectations from children sorting toys and placing each category into a separate bin to just getting all toys off the floor and into any bin or container will make a world of difference. Changing your expectation will likely allow them to be successful and you to feel good praising them for their hard work at cleaning up. All children want to be helpful.
You may choose to store a small amount of something specific separately and then have the children clean that up before moving on to other toys. As an example, we have art supplies and play-doh in the kitchen area. These are only played with at the kitchen table and do not go in the playroom or their bedrooms. As a result, the children are able to easily put all the art supplies and play-doh away when they have finished with those items. Meanwhile, the playroom consists of bins of toys that are all mixed up and not at all sorted by category.
How to satisfy the new toy itch
Yes, my kids get bored. When they say they are bored, I usually respond, “Good.” There is research in which participants had to read telephone books (a boring task) and then were asked to be creative. Folks who were more bored were the most creative! Some boredom is a good thing. It allows us to use our brains and be creative, it allows us to come up with an idea of something we would like to do and then begin to act on that idea. When this happens, our children develop thinking and organizational skills that will serve them for the rest of their lives.
At other times, you may feel bored yourself and ready for something new. A clutter-free option is to visit the library. Your local library is a great resource for books, magazines, movies, and more. Many libraries offer tablets, video games, and even board game or toy loans. This is a great chance for kids to select new items and get that new toy feeling without spending any money or adding to your clutter. You borrow the items for a few weeks and then return them. Many libraries no longer have fines even if you are late returning the loans, but be sure to ask. What a great option already paid for by your tax dollars!
