People with kids: how to declutter toys?

Unclutterer ForumsWelcomeHello!

People with kids: how to declutter toys?

(7 posts) (6 voices)

Started 1 year ago by streamliner
Latest reply from Sandhog
RSS feed for this topic

Overall Rating: votes

Tags:

streamliner
Member

Trying to figure out how to reduce the toy "tonnage" belonging to my four-year-old daughter. Up until now I had done graduated departure: put it away for a couple of months and see if she asks about it (which, pretty much, she hadn't.)

So now she's four and a few months. And we've just made an international move, and I know that she's old enough to know what she's got now, because in the course of the move she's asked about things ("where's my fill-in-the-blank?" etc.), so she recognizes they're absent.

I have a couple of times raised the sharing-some-of-your-toys-with-people-who-don't-have-them idea, and she's not against that but is never in favor of it for the toy she's holding ;) (And I have seen on Hoarders people saying that they were turned into hoarders in part by having all their things thrown out as children and the rootless feeling that comes from that, and as much as we move I don't want to do anything to aggravate THAT, either.)

But particularly now that we're living in a little smaller space, we've GOT to do something, both so we can move around and so that she can get to her toys to play with them. If there's too many, it's hard to see anything to play with it.

Any ideas on an effective and loving way to do this? How have other people done it?

Posted 1 year ago #
klutzgrrl
Member

My experience is you really have to be patient and give it some time - put the things she doesn't want to play with in storage. Make it clear that you will never ever throw anything out without her say-so (and honour that promise, of course).

About two years ago we stored a bunch of stuff that wasn't being played with, and just this week got rid of a car-boot-full. By this time we'd well grown out of them and things like the Barbie house and horse were quite happily tossed - the Barbie house she'd been hanging onto as recently as six months ago, even though she hasn't played with Barbies for ages.

Some of the things we kept were quite unexpected; things they remembered playing with.

Ongoing - try to minimize what's coming in, because kids do go through such stages. I find the worst stuff is merchandise and souvenirs from things like 'High School Musical' - they are ugly, outdated and nobody likes it anymore, but because it's a souvenir, they hang around. After only a year, she's grown out of 'Twilight' and passed some very expensive merchandise on to friends. So stick with low-cost items (pins and posters) for anything that's going to be a passing stage!

Posted 1 year ago #
lottielot
Member

my kids have so much they never even notice when I declutter things, but I do ask before getting rid of big stuff... Maybe you could use Christmas/birthdays as a good way of uncluttering: 'we only have a small amount of space here, and Father Christmas won't be able to bring new toys if there's nowhere to put them' works for my kids. I recently asked them to cull some soft toys and gave them a target of 10, they negotiated and haggled with each other and ended up giving 12 to charity. I've floated the idea of a car boot sale with them keeping the proceeds, they seem keen on that but you'd need to wait a bit. The toy influx does slow down after a certain age, thank goodness, though it's a constant battle to stop crap from other people. I try and keep presents in the original packaging, hope they forget them and then put them in the charity bag, they've never noticed yet and it's usually with the kind of presents which end up very quickly as JUNK! People drive me crazy with the crap they give my kids sometimes. I'm having a real internal debate right now whether to buy them a big bucket of these building pieces which they played with when we were out somewhere, they loved them and I can see them getting lots of use, but it's another big toy which needs a home, and I may need to get rid of some other stuff first. I'm going to sell all ds2's wooden train stuff on ebay, but will need to wait till he's ready for it, he never plays with it any more but I know he'll say no right now! I'm also not sure about the lego, we have box-fulls of the stuff but ds1 has grown out of it and ds2 is not so interested, but goes through phases of playing with it, but likes everyone else to join in...Maybe I might start giving away some to friends with smaller kids. I do try and stick to arts and crafts stuff and books for presents, not so exciting but art stuff is consumable and books take up less space and don't get underfoot all the time :)

Posted 1 year ago #
Rosa
Member

We use the volume of toys as a limit on getting new things "Sure, you can half a plastic dragon, but I know your toy box is full so you're going to have to get rid of something else first..."

If the smaller space means there really isn't room for her stuff, she'll see that to- you could sit down with her and say, you know, the books really need to be in the book shelf or the toys need to fit into the cupboard, how can we make that happen?

I think it helps a lot that my son sees me decluttering my own stuff all the time; sometimes he spontaneously puts something into the giveaway bag (he's 5) because he's decided to get rid of it. I made myself a rule that I was going to deal with my own stuff before I started on his and his dad's, to have the moral high ground, and it's helped a lot.

Posted 1 year ago #
lazycow
Member

@streamliner, my children are a bit older (10 and 7) and the volume of toys coming into the house has decreased dramatically over the years. They are now old enough to choose what to let go (having a garage sale, where they get the proceeds for their stuff is a great motivator!) and we live by the 'one in, one out rule', especially for things like stuffed animals. Also, we have an assigned space for items. For instance, one shelf each for stuffed toys, any overspill and some have to go. Fortunately we know lots of younger children, and my kids are happy to pass on their outgrown favourites to people they know.

It does take time and patience to teach them to let go of things. My 10 yo daughter is finally happy to do this, but it's taken over 2 years of gentle nagging and watching me lead by example :-)

Posted 1 year ago #
streamliner
Member

Thanks all. Some good ideas there. I have gone through and gotten some of the big plastic things that are probably too young for her and put them in a box in the guest room, and eventually I'll figure out what to do with the box (show them to her, or just invite them out. We do have a guest room so it can wait there for a while and I don't have to deal with it this second.

Rosa, I think you raise an important point--I feel the same way about decluttering my own stuff/"the house's" stuff first, and then my family's. Being ruthless with your own stuff is one thing; being ruthless with somebody else's is something else again!

Yeah, I guess as they get older the toys get smaller and more expensive, huh?

jcb

Posted 1 year ago #
Sandhog
Member

Very good point to cut down on the small clutter coming in - souvieniers and stuff like that. We have recently taken up geocaching so i have a jar of small items to leave in caches, i keep it in the trunk of the car. If i find a cache big enough, i will put it ALL in andook for more small bits to refill the jar.

When my son turned 7, even his formerly precious wooden Thomas the tank engine turned into "i hate that stuff" we have saved some of the nicer wooden trains for ds2, who is still a baby.

Posted 1 year ago #

Reply

You must log in to post. If you do not already have an account, you can register here.