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Too Many Toys…
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Okay I guess I’ve got spring cleaning fever but our house is filled with too many toys. My question to all you wonderful people out there is what toys, in your opinion, should I keep and witch should I throw away?
We have building block, cars, licoln logs, games, puppets, dress up, kitchen, etc… Boys & Girls toys…need I say more…
I’m at my wits end. There are so many toys that even after we pick up, it doesn’t look like we’ve picked up. LOL Just wandering if anyone else has gone thru this and what were some of your solutions.
I love to declutter. I hate clutter! I only keep good (non-twaddle) toys that my son loves and plays with often and that keep his interest for more than a moment. If that makes sense. I guess while making decisions I create for myself little rules or tests and they have to pass to stay. I do also give certain allowance for sentimentality but only slightly. If it collects dust more than engaging my son it’s out no matter where we got it or what memory (or person) may be attached to it.
HTH!
Dana
We just had a great discussion going on this topic here… http://simplycharlottemason.com/scmforum/topic/how-many-toys-do-your-kids-have I’d read through all the posts and see what you think. There’s a lot there!
Please do not throw away, but give to charity.
We are cleaning out our toys, too. I bought containers to fit under the bed and in the closet. What doesn’t fit in them has to go. My kids are good about weeding through since we have done it regularly. I am getting rid of more this time. I set it all out in the middle of the floor and have each pick a few of their favorites and then I pick some and we end up getting rid of about half.
I was inspired by the post Alice shared a link for.
Well, I have been inspired by both of these posts. I think now that we have a normal week ahead of us (it has been a bit crazy recently), we are going to make this our project. We had a minor clean-out late last year, but are definitely ready to go more in depth. His room is full of toys…they have spilled over into my study….and we have several bins downstairs in the living room. The problem I have encountered (like several others here) is that DS is very attached to most of his toys…he actually does play with nearly all of them on a regular basis, and had a hard time letting any of them go last time. So I am carefully thinking through ways to go about it that will make it fun….(this pile is for you, this pile is for the kids who need toys, kind of thing), and will probably also try to just go about it at his “good” times of the day (less probability of meltdowns.)
I will probably combine it with getting rid of more of our “twaddly” books. We did a similar book weed-out a few months ago, but my boy LOVES his books even more than his toys, so this is a harder one and will probably be handled much more gradually.
Good luck on your spring cleaning!
I’d love to hear your opinions on something I’ve been giving thoughtful consideration. When my children were very young, purging their toys and belongings was an easy task. After all, infants and toddlers are not reliable decision-makers, so I simply went through their things and got rid of whatever I felt necessary. Now, they are attached to things (even if they are broken or missing parts), and we sometimes disagree about what should stay and what should go. In order to successfully purge their “stuff,” I would have to go through things after they are in bed, unknown to them.
How have you handled this? Do you “pull rank” as a parent and tell them, “I prefer to keep my house in order this way. When you have your own house, you may save every single thing you acquire in life. For now, you will only keep the amount of things of which I approve.” At what age do you defer to the child’s opinion as to what to keep?
Thank you ladies for all your great advice. I’m heading over right now to look at that link.
sue_mom23: That is also one of my problems. My 3 oldest ones know what they like and they like it all. I think making a pile for him and a pile for kids who “need” toys is a good idea like Questa7 said. My kids love to give so I’m thinking this will be good.
Again thank you all for your info.
Okay another question for you all… my ds overly LOVES Wii. Now don’t get me wrong. I only allow 30 min. of play time only after all school and chores are done.
I need some ideas…I’d like him to get interested in more hands on toys. We have lots of star wars toys that he plays with but other than that not so much. Any ideas?
I had that problem with my dd, only she just plain likes watching TV – anything and everything that’s on. What I’ve done is just limit TV to maybe Friday evening as a family and maybe one other time during the weekend. During the week, the TV is off for the most part. Very rarely we’ll watching something on Food Network as a family or something, but more often it’s only on the weekend. She still seems “addicted” to it, but at least this gives her a “fix,” if you will, in tiny chunks. 🙂
Sue, have you ever taken a picture of the items in question and then asked them to share those items with the appropriate people/place? My SIL told me about that method. It really helps with all those keepsaky things that my kids want so they don’t forget the memory associated with the items.
What if you insist that they can keep — number of actual memorabilia things (AND toys) – they choose which to keep and the rest are in a photo album, while the actual item is donated? I think that if they were able to choose and you had the limits in place, they would eventually find that choosing a habit as well and it would make all of you feel better in the long run. (Yes, it will cause a few tears at first – then they see the pictures and “get it”).
sheraz –
My oldest dd is extremely fond of her art projects. I’ve tried to get her to take a picture of her holding it and putting it in a scrapbook, but she refuses. It’s “too special” or some such thing. 🙂 All of my dds are very into memory stuff (so is my dh, and me to an extent). It’s so difficult to choose. How do you go about helping them choose? My oldest is 8, and the other 2 are 6 1/2 and 4. Any ideas?
Sara-
Does your daughter do a lot of drawing, or are her art projects 3-D? If they are mainly drawings, how about a binder with sheet protecters where you can keep them? If they’re 3-D, we got a plastic rubbermaid bin that we keep in the basement that we put all the kids art stuff, and anything else memorable that we don’t want to throw away. It keeps it out of sight and out of our living space, but we’ve still got it, too!
I have found that there are some that I think we should keep as well as she does, so those go into the sheet protecters in the binder. Usually they are the really good ones, or the ones that tell a story, or just the ones that show her advancement of talent and abilities. Some are just plain cute. =)
The 20 qt. rubbermaid bins are excellent for her to store her work in, because when I sit down to go through it after a few months (or whenever) she usually looks at something and says, oh, we can get rid of that one, I have a better one, or I can’t remember what that was supposed to be.
It is like the couple of months of out of sight, out of mind combined with the whole new level of life experiences just naturally put things in perspective for her. I admit that quite often I go through the box to narrow the field a bit before I invite her opinion on what to keep. It depends on what it is. =)
HTH.
I’d say about 1/3 of her creations are 3D. Made out of TP tubes, cereal boxes, just paper folded into 3D shapes, “helmets” she makes for robots out of boxes and such, dioramas, etc, etc. She is HUGE on art – she wants to be an artist when she grows up – and she remembers pretty much everything she ever drew/made. So sheraz, leaving it in a box for a few months, or even a couple years, she still remembers!!! I’ll admit my dh is the same way… We recently went through some of his boxes from when he was a kid, and he remembered nearly everything…… Oy…..
I think I will try to do a 3-ring binder with page protectors for her, but when she draws on construction paper and her large real art paper, that will be a problem. And then there’s still the dilemma of the 3D structures…. We have 4 children, so keeping boxes of the 3D stuff and other art is getting to be a bit of a hassle and space-waster. Right now the boxes are up in our storage space in the garage. Not sure that’s the best place for it, but it’s what I’ve got for now.
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