Amazing, isn’t it, how your kids won’t look at many of their toys for months, but as soon as you try to organize them and get rid of a few, suddenly, they can’t bear to part with them?
I normally try to pare down the toy box when the kids are gone. Today though, I sort of just got on a roll in Logan’s room and couldn’t stop myself. I wasn’t even halfway through with my sorting when Cody and Logan came clambering up the stairs. They both stopped short at the sight of their toys in a variety of piles.
“This is mine!” Cody sounded deeply offended as he picked up one of the many stuffed animals I had put in a pile to go to the attic. “This is mine too!” he added, grabbing a few other toys.
“OK. You guys go play in Cody’s room while I finish this up,” I said. Obviously I wasn’t going to make any progress with them hovering over me and insisting that they loved each and every object I was forcing them to give up. Thankfully, they stayed busy while I siphoned out the majority of their toys.
Kids today have too many toys. They have so many, they become overwhelmed by all the choices, can’t decide on anything, and whine that there’s nothing to do. I know I don’t help the situation any when I can’t bear to get rid of particular items that have sat unused in the toy box for months.
For instance, Mr. Potatohead. I have never seen any of my kids play with him, yet not only do we have him, as well as Mrs. Potatohead, we’ve had them since the girls were 2, and I still can’t seem to let them go. It’s very doubtful that the boys would even have noticed their disappearance, so I have to chalk my reluctance to send them packing up to the fact that I, personally, adored Mr. Potatohead as a child.
Not good enough, I told myself today, as I made the decision to ditch most of their stuff. So what if I have some sort of weird attachment to Mr. Potatohead and the Glo-Worm? That doesn’t mean my kids do or that it gives me a license to keep toys around that aren’t even used (even though I try to justify it by telling myself I’m saving them for my grandchildren).
Now that the work is done, I just have to hide my bags full of sorted goods — one for my sister, one for the Salvation Army and one to haul up to the attic to store for awhile — before the boys find them and start sneaking the rejects back into their collection.
What are your tips and tricks for slowing down the inevitable toy overload?
What tips do I have? Just what you’ve done! A few months ago, I weeded out all of the toys except a few varieties — the Little People toys (which are a lot — we have several things like the airport, garage, etc.), Thomas the Tank Engine, and wooden blocks. And I was *still* constantly having to clean up their room. Now, I’ve got most of the toys I removed then in the yard sale pile, and they’ve never seemed to notice that they were gone. (Although, they have seen them in the pile and instantly wanted to play with them.)
I like the “box up the toys to take to someone else” idea — they’re new to *them*. I’ve also boxed up the toys for a month or two, and then when I get them out again, they’re “brand new again” toys for my boys.
I’ve managed to actually do some of the toy removal while the boys were there — I think they thought I was just cleaning up when I put the toys into boxes, and didn’t realize until it was too late that the boxes were leaving their rooms!
But I’ve found that the boys play better when their room is clean, which means they play better when they have fewer toys. It’s almost as if the clutter is overwhelming to them…. but they still dump out every box every day. So I’m going to have to work on that!
Kate has an incredibly good memory for toys and dolls, unfortunately, so I’ve had to stop getting rid of stuff while she’s away. After Christmas this year, I actually had her do it. I explained that she’d gotten a lot of nice presents, and that we had to make room for them by picking out some toys to give away to kids who didn’t have very many. I asked her to make two piles, one to keep, and one to give away. She went around the house to where all the toys are and made piles in each spot. I was proud that the piles were about equal in size, and we ended up giving away a huge black garbage bag full of stuff.
But then, she’s an unusually good child. I can’t see Sophia doing the same thing at all.
We put some toys in our storage room and planned to rotate them for variety. Well, Landen discovered the stash and now calls it “the guest room playroom”!
Also, each Christmas, sis-in-law Angela exchange a new toy between each of our children. Last year our ignored Elmo was a hit with 2 year old Carter!
I also try to keep the toys to a minimum but I do rotate them. It’s not so much that they don’t want the toys, they just have too many to choose from (which is not a terrible problem!) Anyway, I box up the toys in large plastic bins and store them in the garage. When they want to rotate or peak into the box, they may take a toy out but they have to give up a toy (of equal size) to put in. Sort of a library system I guess. It helps keep the messes to a minimum and when they see me scooping up toys (often for goodwill) they don’t panic because they think it’s all going into the bin. I have a pretty good eye on what they actually play with and those things I keep. The rest? Toy heaven…