Do you ever get so fed up with all the toys lying around? This is the inside story of my drastic decision to take my kids’ toys away.
As some of you already know, I’ve been on a mission this year to simplify my family’s life and rid ourselves of excess. Over the course of the past nine months I have probably given away about 75 percent of my girls’ toys, keeping only the items that I felt encouraged their imagination and that they actually played with. I thought I was doing pretty good.
Even so, there were warning signs that my kids still had too much stuff. In June, we took a field trip to Reptile World in Orlando. Afterwards we decided it would be fun to take the girls to dinner at a dinosaur-themed restaurant called T-Rex in Downtown Disney. While we were waiting to be seated my oldest daughter Maggie spotted the Build-a-Dino Workshop in the gift shop and although we immediately said “no way,” from that moment on she could think of nothing else.
All through our delicious dinner, surrounded by dramatic (fake) meteor showers and animatronic dinosaurs, she fixated on the one thing she couldn’t have rather than the cool sights we were actually experiencing.
On the three hour drive home, Husband and I–seriously concerned by our daughter’s inability to enjoy the moment–made a point to talk about all the neat stuff we had seen, what our favorite reptiles were, and how funny Trouble had been holding the snake. By the time we made it home the Build-a-Dino had been forgotten. At least by her. But we were worried.
In the weeks that followed, Chuck and I talked a lot about how we were going to handle this lack of contentment we were noticing. Then one morning near the end of July, after telling my kids to clean their room for the umpteenth time, I made the somewhat impulsive–albeit pre-warned–decision to take away ALL their stuff.
Just 2 days earlier I had spent half the day cleaning their room & re-organizing their toys and closet, which is something I do fairly regularly. I wasn’t asking them to clean some giant out-of-control mess, just to pick up a few items off the floor and put them away in the very clearly labeled baskets. Every time I came back to check on them, they had not only NOT picked up, they had made an even bigger mess.
I finally gave up and took it all away. I wasn’t angry, just fed up. I calmly began packing up not just a toy or two, but every single thing. All their dress-up clothes, baby dolls, Polly Pockets, & stuffed animals, all their Barbies, building blocks, and toy trains, right down to the the furniture from their dollhouse and play food from their kitchen. I even took the pretty Pottery Barn Kids comforter from their bed. The girls watched me in stunned silence for a few minutes and then, when the shock wore off, they helped. And just like that, their room was clear.
I had no idea what a dramatic difference this one semi-impulsive decision would make in all our lives. I first started noticing a real change about 4 weeks later when we took a family trip to Key West.
In contrast to our last outing and for the first time ever, neither girl asked us to buy a single thing the entire weekend. Not a toy, not a cheesy souvenir, not a light-up necklace from a passing street vendor. Nothing. We passed hundreds of shops and they loved looking in the window, but they were content just to be. What was most amazing to me was that we didn’t talk to them about it ahead of time. Not once did we have to tell them not to ask, or explain that being together was what mattered.
Had I not experienced it with my own eyes, I would’ve never believed that an addiction to stuff could be broken that quickly. The truth is that when I took all their stuff away, I was terrified at what would happen. I worried that I was scarring them for life, depriving them of some essential developmental need, taking away their ability to self-entertain.
In reality, the opposite has happened. Instead of being bored, they seem to have no shortage of things to do. Their attention span is much longer and they are able to mindfully focus on their task at hand. They color or read for hours at a time and happily spend the entire afternoon playing hide & seek or pretend.
They are far more content, able to appreciate the blessings that they do have, and able to truly enjoy the moment they are in without always having to move on to the next thing. They are more creative and patient, more willing to share, far more empathetic towards the plight of others, and, with little to fight over, they hardly fight at all.
When I do take down a toy for them to play with (no, I didn’t throw everything away), such as their Lego blocks or dress-up clothes or or their kitchen food & dishes, that one thing will entertain them for the entire day. (The rest has more or less been forgotten and will soon make it’s way from the attic to the Goodwill pile.)
What I love even more is that they are able to recognize excess on their own. Aside from a favorite stuffed animal and the comforter on their bed, (which they both earned back), neither of them actually want their toys back on a permanent basis. They like not being overwhelmed by stuff and not having to spend so much time cleaning their room. In fact, later that very same day, as we drove to gymnastics class, Maggie said it’s okay that we don’t have any more toys Mommy. We can just read and use our imaginations. And now we won’t have to clean up every day. She understood before I did that more stuff doesn’t make us happier.
When I first became a mom I was so happy to have a chance to start over, to undo through my children all the wrong that was done to me, to give them everything I felt I had missed out on. I wanted our lives to be perfect, and my vision of perfection included a perfectly decorated bedroom filled with beautiful things, a life where they would want for nothing.
I equated giving them stuff with making them happy, a message that our consumer driven culture hammers into our psyches from the time we our born. Oh, what a lie!
I started this blog because I am a shopaholic, and there are so many times where I buy things when I am bored or unhappy, just to fill the void. My husband laughs at me (and sometimes throws up his hand in frustration) because although I talk a good game about wanting to downsize and get rid of stuff, in reality there are still many times where I just can’t help myself from buying more.
I justify it, telling myself it was on sale or a really good deal, or something we really needed, or that I deserve it because I work so hard. In reality it is just another thing I am trying to buy to solve a problem that runs much deeper.
Stuff isn’t evil in and of itself, but in a world where we are constantly told that what we have isn’t quite good enough, the love of things can so very easily consume us. It is the pursuit of it all–more toys, cuter clothes, a prettier house, a nicer car, a bigger computer, a fancier phone–that makes us forget all the things that actually matter.
It wasn’t until after observing first hand the real and immediate changes in my children after taking their toys away that I truly began to understand. And now instead of me teaching them, they have taught me the lesson I wish I would’ve have learned a long time ago.
For our family, there’s no turning back.
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I am a SAHM of four (all Under 4, Might I add) and I have taken toys away when my eldest two don't assist in cleaning their room. Not everything but close too. My eldest daughters (3, she'll be 4 next week, and 2) threw HORRIBLE tantrums when I loaded a box up with toys that were all over the floor. I wasn't angry (like you said I was fed up with the constant mess, and cleaning) I had NO intention of giving their toys back. They still had their doll house and a few dolls/barbies to play in it. and 3 dresses (I have three daughters so that's why I kept the three out).
My husband came home and was Outraged that I had taken so many toys from the kids (Dear Husband grew up in poverty, so when he got toys as a kid he treasured them and actually has a few to this day of toys he played with when he was a kid.) My husband was all kinds of upset about it (more than the kids really). The only reason I let the kids earn their toys back was because HE was so upset about it.
Here is a question for you;
I want to simplify our lives and teach our children that it's NOT about material things. Just as you did with your kids.
I want my Husband to be on board with me, how can I help he realize that we are making a choice for our kids' future by NOT impulse buying (toys, clothes, 'treats' Ect)?
Also Our eldest daughter is from my husband's previous relationship, we have her 50-60% of the time (another reason My husband is against removing ALL toys) I know that her Mom would FLIP if we took all of our eldest's toys and gave them to Goodwill, or to some kid who can't have nice things like us.
I want to Spoil my kids with love and affection and Knowledge... NOT with things that can break, or things they will eventually grow out of.
Thank you for this Blog! I am definitely going to be subscribing and following!
Keep up the good work!
This is probably a really old comment so I don't know if you'll actually see it or not, but here goes...
What you need to do is actually *involve* the kids in what to keep or get rid of. If *you* decide for them (IE just taking it all away like you attempted before), you're only going to get tantrums from the kids and righteous outrage from the adults, I don't mean to be insulting, but what you did before...there is no other way about, that was stealing and you are one hundred percent wrong for doing so (just as the author of this article is wrong and a thief, I can pretty much guarantee you that she did *not* do anything positive for her kids or improve anything with them, I grew up with a mother who frequently just went through my things and arbitrarily decided what to get rid of and all it ever did was make me afraid of her and resent her as well as made me afraid to ask for things and fear that whatever I did have would be stolen from me at any time). Besides the circumstances that your husband grew up in, that would be the other reason why he would have been so outraged and resistant to the idea of cutting down on things. Your husband will probably be far less resistant to the idea of getting rid of things if you actually involve the kids in it and give them a lot of choice in what to keep and what goes away, your kids will more than likely be far more open to the idea as well and either not pitch a fit at all or pitch significantly less of one. It's all well and good to want to cut down on the things you own or make the numbers more manageable, but it's something you have to both lead by example on, and something you have to involve the owners of the things in, afterall, *you* certainly wouldn't enjoy it if someone came in and sold off all of your personal belongings or arbitrarily decided what to get rid of no matter how important it was to you.
I needed this article so badly!!! My husband told me long ago that our kids have way too many toys and that our house is too crowded by toys... He told me we should take all of the toys away leaving the with just one at a time.... now i get it! Now i get why our son is not constant in anything.... Thanks for posting this! Now, i'll go and work a bit cleaning up our house of all the toys :D
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Although, I don't think I could go to this extreme, this gives me some good ideas and reasons to declutter. And at first, I thought, oh my gosh, no toys, and then I saw you took the kids on vacation to KEY WEST!!!! Clearly the kids are not deprived and are making better memories on the trips you take them on that a toy that will soon be forgotten. Naysayers need to look at the big picture and realize that works for one won't work for all, but for you it works, and that is all that matters. Bravo!
You are the coolest. I pretty much hate toys lol. My five year old currently will not go in his room (not sure why...) and he has not played with any of the toys in there for weeks. His room is also a small disaster. In all reality, my kids have a bunch of stuff and they play with like 5% of it. The rest they just throw around and its a battle to keep clean. I am really battling the need to collect and be a less is more person. I pretty much agree with all you said! :)
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I was wondering what you would keep for a baby (14 1/2 months). I want to keep developmental things like a push/riding toy and definitely her books. I am a first time mommy and I just don't want to do it wrong! I know that probably sounds silly, but I really want my daughter to stay focused and calm which she normally is (especially since I have relatives with very wild kids that have a BA-gillion toys). This really sturck a chord with me. I started selling my things on Facebook last week because I have finally given up on those short shorts and tight tops (anything without straps went bye-bye), but I never thought to simplify my baby's life. So I am super excited! Thank you for this! Hopefully it'll save me a lot of grief later if I do this now!