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Picking up toys….
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This should be a no-brainer except that it isn’t. I have tried everything I know to get my son to pick up his toys and while he will do it sometimes, he isn’t consistent about it or he will tell me that he has done it and I find out that he hasn’t.
I have taken his toys away that were left out for a period of time, I have taken toys that were left out and donated them but it doesn’t seem to encourage him in any way.
Surely, someone has a solution for this.
Thx, Rhonda
Rhonda
First, how old is your son? That will make a difference in what I would try.
For a basic overview:
With little ones (under age 5) I make sure they do not have more toys than they can put away on their own (with you watching with expectant encouragement) in 5 minutes. Pack up the rest, donate, or store them. For some little ones this means they get 5 toys. For others it may be more, each is an individual. Then we play together and pick up together for a few days before I have them doing the pick up alone with me there.
If the child is 5 or older I do it a bit differently, and one older than 10 it becomes different again.
I don’t allow meals, snacks, or special things like a TV program until their things are put away. I need to be more consistent though, as sometimes I slip and forget to ask or check beforehand, but they are getting more consistent with time. Also, if they don’t put away something I know they know better about leaving out, like leaving their dirty clothes in the floor after changing, I make them perform the task multiple times to remind them they should know to do this the first time. This has lessened the number of times I have to ask them to do things they know they are supposed to do. Recently, I stopped allowing any snacks or drinks, even water, in any room but the kitchen because I got tired of telling them to take their empty dishes to the sink. These things have helped to bring more smoothness to my day. I started this process around age 5, but I suppose it could start sooner, I just didn’t think of it until then. HTH
When mine were younger, I converted the linen closet to a toy closet. Toys were organized in plastic bins. I put a child lock on the door. They could ask me to open the closet and get out one bin. I was sure to close the door. They couldn’t get another toy out until the first was cleaned up. This has worked really well. All of our toys can be grouped together (vehicles, dollhouse, trains, etc.). If it doesn’t fit in a category, we don’t have it, so there aren’t loose toys around. It’s very easy to tell where things go. This helped train them to clean up before getting something new out.
Good thoughts from all of you. I would love to get rid of all of his toys but that would be mean! However, I have taken away all of his small legos and he probably won’t be getting them back for many, many months. I was tired of seeing them everywhere!
Someone asked his age – 6 1/2. Old enough to do as he is told. I think he takes all of his little legos out and gets overwhelmed picking them up so he won’t do it.
For the Legos, one thing we did at one point was bag ‘sets’ in ziploc bags. They could get one ‘set’ out at a time. (We don’t do this now, but it was helpful for a year or so when teaching some how to pick up all their legos.
Legos… they are an adventure. I have 3 kids 8, 6.5 & 3. They all love legos. Our rule is only on the table. We also sorted them into 10 containers. The kids are so much better now because they do not have to dump and find the right piece. They build more and are happy to put them away correctly because it makes next time better. They build for hours every day often.
We have very few toys, but they play so much happier with fewer options. They rarely fight any more, no longer “dump and run” in effort to find a specific toy. I found downsizing toys to be the best thing we did as far as keeping things tidy and less arguments. The kids are no longer overwhelmed when they pick up.
Getting rid of all toys might seem too much, but kids not that long ago had few, if any toys and were quite happy. My husband are now quality not quantity, and have no guilt over giving away unloved/used toys to others.
I don’t think you have to get rid of all of this toys. LOL! Perhaps it just a matter of being thankful for what he has and being a good steward of his belongings. See 1 Corinthians 4:12 and Matthew 25:29. All of our belongings are blessings that belong to God and if we don’t care for them, they get removed…sometimes permanantly.
Pray with your child and help him ask God to take better care of his belongings.
If someone gives my daughter a gift of something we already have, it goes in the attic unless she donates the similar item.
Certainly, natural consequences are in order and it’s so hard to be consistent as a parent. I know!!!! Try taking the toys away for an even longer time before returning them or requiring him to help you do a mommy chore to earn it back. Take away privileges like the TV or sweets or playtime with his favorite friend. I have even had my children pack up the toys themselves and we have driven straight to the thrift store to donate them right then and there if they repeatedly weren’t cared for.
***What worked for us THE MOST was getting rid of most toys. It has paved the way for for some wonderfully smooth days as far as toys are concerned. I threw away broken toys. Gave away/sold out grown toys. Donated duplicate toys or toys they were no longer interested in. I brought some toys to the church nursery. We only have about 1/4 of what we started with and it is still too much. I am about to get rid of even more things that I kept that I have noticed that they don’t play with. Less is more! You can always build back the toy collection over time as he earns the responsibility. ***Children feel confused and stressed when they have too much stuff. It was a blessing to get rid of toys.
The best part of not having so many indoor toys is that our whole family plays outdoors together much more often and for longer periods of time. We decreased the indoor toy amount and increased things like bicyles, bug nets, drawing paper, pencils, sidewalk chalk, water toys, BOOKS!
Everything has a place to be stored when it isn’t being used. I don’t care what sort of mess they make, as long as they clean it up/put it away before they go on to the next thing.
Also, I don’t categorize toys. I just provide plenty of storage because when they are being creative, they use a variety of their toys at one time.
Now that we have less, clean up takes mere minutes. It’s such a joy because we all get to spend more time together!
I hope that you pray over this difficulty and that better days lie ahead for you.
I use a lot of Love and Logic in our house. It would go something like “Hey boys, please pick up these toys. I’ll be back in a few minutes to see that it’s done!”, with a smile. If I return and it’s not done, I say with lots of empathy “Oh. What a bummer.” Now, my kids KNOW that this means trouble. Usually at this point they are scrambling and begging me to give them another chance. Sometimes I give them a chance but usually I take one of the following approaches. I might put the toys in “clutter jail” (a plastic see-through tub) and they have to pick a chore out of a jar for each toy’s ransom. If a toy is in clutter jail for longer than two weeks, I assume the child is okay with it being donated. Or, I might wait until they ask me to do something for them, like put together a train track, or make them a snack, etc. and say “Oh what a bummer, kiddo. Remember earlier when I asked you to pick up your toys? Well I picked them up for you and that really drained my energy. Now I don’t have enough energy to make you a snack. How sad.” There must be genuine empathy with no sarcasm. My kids have figured all of this out rather quickly. They now know that key words like “what a bummer”, “how sad” and “energy drain” all mean that they better get their butts in gear. I love the approach because it gives the kid a choice, teaching them how to make the right choice from the inside out,, and enables me to handle the situation without getting angry thus protecting my connection with them.
We recently cut the toy supply down drastically. We did this gradually over time. It has been a HUGE help and I am not done yet.
My kids find plenty of more productive things to do without so much entertainment around. And they are happy without so many toys – it is amazing.
Less really is more!
I would be interested in hearing just what toys (and how much) are left for those who have REALLY cut back on toys. For example:
3 – 10qt sterilite bins of legos
2 stuffed animals for each child
1 bucket of dress-up clothes
…that type of thing. I’m trimming AGAIN and have noticed that when people talk about “only half” of what they used to have, or getting rid of “almost everything” — well, there’s a lot of room for interpretation there. And obviously what works for one is not the solution for all, but I just love specifics! Thanks! 🙂
@Mysterious Lady in Pink
It is very different per family, isn’t it?
We keep most toys stored in the attic, then bring out a new set and put away one about every month. I’ll share what we have and then a list of what we have in the house (not up in the attic) from all of that.
1 – 30 gallon sterilite bin of Little People sets and buildings (we’ve had these since the 12yo was little, every new little one loves them!)
1 – 10 gallon bin of wooden trains + tracks
1 – 5 gallon bin of wooden alphabet blocks and Citiblocs
1 – 30 gallon bin of stuffed animals (My kids can have 2 out at a time and own 4 animals total. The only exception is Emma, my 8yo. This is her favorite toy, she owns 19. Her brothers prefer Legos 😉 )
1 – 5 gallon bin of wooden food to go with a large play kitchen
1 – underbed storage tub with Legos. Full.
1 – 10 gallon bin with 18″ dolls and clothes (think American Girl knock offs)
1 – 30 gallon bin with mixed toys (small baby/toddler toys, Mr. Potato Head, 10 matchbox cars and track, Imaginext guys and small vehicles)
3 – 8 gallon locking tubs to keep personal Lego sets in, usually divided up in ziploc bags and including instructions. These are not full. Joseph, Daniel, and Emma have these. Emma only has a few of the girl Lego sets and she keeps them safe from the 4 littlest boys with this tub, she also keeps artwork in it 😉
1 small bag of dress up – I think we pretty much just have playsilks in this, maybe a few hats, it’s in the attic and has been for a few months so I’m not sure what the kids kept when they went through playclothes last time.
Okay, so that is the extent of the toys we own for 8 children. And at any one time those are NEVER all out of the attic. I just took a walk through the rooms to see what is currently out of the attic:
2 stuffed animals per child (on beds).
1 18″ doll.
1 underbed storage tub of Legos. (Under one set of boy bunkbeds.)
3 – 8 gal. locking bins of Legos. (These fit under bunkbeds).
About 5 gallons worth of mixed toys for the little ones out of the big 30 gallon bin. These are in the living room cubical filling the bottom 3 bins about 1/3 full each.
That’s it.
Does that help give you a mental picture?
Love it, Tristan! Thank you! We just got rid of one set of bunkbeds and are left with one loft (computer/desk under it) for the 3 kids in one bedroom. As we prepare to sell our house we realized we had to “open up” the room because most people would not put 3 kids in that little room, lol. BUT we also lost our underbed storage when we did that. So 2 of the kids sleep on the floor for now (they’re young, they think it’s great, lol) and we are trying to determine just how much to cut for toys and books…. Such a struggle! But we don’t want to just trim while we sell the house; we want permanent changes.
[passage of time where I typed out everything in the kids’ room]
OK, maybe an epiphany here — I just typed out (and subsequently deleted because this probably wouldn’t be helpful to anyone else) what we have and I think I see a few areas where we could trim.
Would love to see more examples of “this is what we do”!
Our “less” looks like this:
1. Each child has a 3 foot by 3 foot cubbie rack from Target. If all their toys don’t fit in there, we have too many.
2. One oversized basket for large items that don’t fit in the cubbies (i.e. magnetic writing toy, guitar)
3. We have one container of blocks and one container of trains.
4. All of their books are carefully selected and fit on two shelves.
5. One container of dress up clothes.
6. Stuffed animals are placed on their bed after they make it up and they can have around 5 each.
7. We have a doll house but all of the things that go in it are stored in one of the cubbies when not in use.
8. Each one has a bike and a scooter. We also have bug nets, shovels, balls, gloves, basket balls, buckets, water sprinkler type toys.
9. One cabinet in the living room has puzzles and games. I keep only a small handful of movies for rainy days or sick days. No netflix or streaming.
Our toy supply really is very minimal. I keep plenty of handicraft materials on hand and art supplies. We love books and drawing, as well.
I minimized all of our school room things, too. There are empty cubbies and book shelves just waiting to be filled in the coming years. I am in no hurry. I purge everything that is not immediately useful or worth keeping. I don’t keep things just in case we might need them because years later, we never needed them.
***a small handful of toys that are played with in the company of loving parents is worth much more than a huge pile of toys that the child doesn’t know what to play with first.
More is less….in every aspect of life….Lindsey’s post about uncluttering the home have been life changing for us. I am a more focused and productive person who is NOT spending all day managing too many belongings. It takes mere minutes to straighten up a room. No one misses the extra junk.
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