Get Rid of 75% of Your Kids’ Toys Now
If you haven’t read the book Simplicity Parenting by Kim John Payne and Lisa M. Ross, I can’t recommend it enough. After finishing the book, I set out on a mission to get rid of the kids’ toys in my house, or at least cut down on them. There’s so much research out there from experts and moms, like you and I alike, that have testified to how much of a difference it made in their children when they cut out the amount of toys. The benefits include:
- Deeper and longer play
- More independent play
- Taking better care of the toys
- Sharing and collaborating with siblings and friends better
And the list goes on.
I didn’t need to be any further convinced before trying it out myself on my kids. Luckily, my kids are still young enough where I knew they probably wouldn’t have noticed if certain toys went disappearing, but I understand it may be different for moms with older kids out there. So while these steps worked for me, I’d love to hear what steps worked (or didn’t work!) for you.
Let’s dive into how I did it.
Toy Rotations and Tracking Behavior
I started with a toy rotation. With an 8 cube shelf (like this one) in my children’s playroom and each week, I would reset the toys on each of those shelves with something new. I had three things I was looking for:
- Which toys did my kids engage with the most that week and which did they not touch?
- With those they did pick up, did they play with them for an extended period of time or did they get tired of them after just a few minutes?
- Which toys did they refuse to play with independently and relied heavily on parent involvement?
This helped me narrow down which toys were good candidates for donation and which we definitely wanted to keep.
Taking Initiative Without Kids Present and Putting Toys Out of Sight
I know it sounds terrible, but I started putting my kids toys in donation bags without them present. Like I said before, my kids are still young enough where I didn’t think they would even really notice, but this may not be possible with older kids, so take this one with a grain of salt.
I went through every area of their toys, including:
- Art Supplies
- Lego Sets
- Books
- Stuffed Animals
- Dress-Up/Accessories
Using the insights I gained from tracking their behavior previously, I knew which of everything I could most likely get rid of with no risk of tantrums or tears. But for my peace of mind, instead of donating right away, I held onto these donations temporarily for a couple of weeks in a different room/closet that the kids don’t go into to make sure they didn’t ask for them or miss them.
And surprise surprise, they didn’t ask for even one.
But what about gifts? Or sentimental items?
If you’re like me, you’ll find it relatively easy to declutter most kids toys that you purchased or you don’t remember where specifically they came from but ended up in your house anyway. But what about the ones that were gifted to the kids by grandparents, friends, other family? What about hand-me-downs that I used to own? What about just sentimental items?
This one is tricky. For us, I didn’t touch most of these. If they were hand-me-downs from when I was a kid, I kept them if my kids played with them, but didn’t feel as much attachment for most of those. But for gifts from grandparents, I kept most of those. So most toys still in our house are those. There may be a time I go back to those and readdress, but I was able to get rid of so many without touching those gifts.
Moving forward, my family is aware that we are trying to minimize toys and when asking for Christmas ideas or birthday gift ideas we give them different ideas that aren’t toys.
Continuing the Process
We still have more toys than we need, but I’ve already noticed a huge difference in my kids’ play.
- My two girls are playing better with each other
- They are playing independently more often
- The most surprising thing – they’ve started cleaning up their toys without prompting
My next criteria for how to continue this process will be the toys my kids’ don’t pick up or clean themselves will start to get hidden away. I picked up this tip from the amazing book “Hunt, Gather, Parent” by Michaeleen Doucleff. Kids will be more likely to help with cleaning and organizing themselves when they understand the why behind it. And if the why behind it is because the dogs will chew on their toys or the toys will get thrown out, they will start to help without the constant prompting and nagging.
So I remind my kids in a matter-of-fact way without anger that if they don’t clean up their toys, we may have to get rid them. And if they still don’t clean them up, that signals to me that they don’t mind me donating them. I’ll continue the process of hiding them for a couple weeks to ensure they don’t miss them and then donate.
I’d love to know what you’ve done to help simplify the toys in your home and if any of these worked for you!
Happy simplifying! Need some help with potty training? Check out this post next for my proven 2-day method!
