Why I Took My Kids' Toys Away and Why They Won't Get Them Back

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.

The Breaking Point

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.

Why I Took My Kids’ Toys Away (& Why They Won’t Get Them Back)

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.

The Paradigm Shift

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.

So…what happened??

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.

No turning back

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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Angela on September 19 at

What an interesting post, and interesting follow-up comments. Plenty of opinions obviously!
I don’t have children myself, but my brother does and I’ve been a babysitting or nanny since I was 11, and of course, a child myself at one time. 🙂
As with so much of parenting, the question of whether this act was traumatic or not completely depends on the individual personalities involved and the parent/child relationship.
I don’t want to assume anything of the lives of the negative commenters but speaking as a person who gets riled about spanking articles, I can attest that it can be hard to be neutral about tough love parenting when one had an unhappy childhood in general, or specific traumas. All combined with perhaps a particularly sensitive personality.
A couple of things stood out that perhaps I would have approached differently in this situation, and have, when I have the opportunity to “parent” children I am caring for.
Again, no assumption that this training was lacking, but I have noticed that sometimes children are ordered to clean their room but are not instructed as to how to do this. Age appropriate clean-up tasks done with a patient adult with a teaching focus can help children start to be responsible for themselves and their own possessions as well as contribute to the household in general. So when the order to clean is issued, one hopes that the skills are in place for the child to complete the task successfully.
In addition, I hope that emotional and behavioral skills are taught that help children understand “stuff” in general. Until something changes in our culture, plentiful, cheap stuff will continue to be a part of our lives that we need to understand how to manage.
I think for many of us, we naturally like stuff. I think it is a human instinct to acquire. And then we attach. We do better when we learn how to manage the inflow, children included. Keeping the stuff from coming in the door somehow is a good first start.
As for the comments about the lack of stuff that children had back in the good ‘ol days. I was young when that was still the case. I’m not romantic about it. I kept myself occupied by myself with crafts and reading but the lack of stuff didn’t automatically mean lots of great family times. I was left to my own entertainment which I managed to do very comfortably, but I was pretty isolated and lonely and didn’t really learn good social skills.
Not every child has the personality to self-occupy with crafts and reading. Some children need more physical activity, more social interaction, etc. Unless the parent can provide these things, I can see why children get bored and turn to the neurostimulation of games and tv, or if the child truly has some challenging neuropsychology, find their way into the addictions that we all want to keep children away from.
With the boundaries and rights question, I can’t NOT have an emotional reaction with these topics, given my own family background. I believe in the rights of children to have a say in the treatment of their bodies and possessions though I also accept that there are many, many examples of parents needing to have the authority. I think it all comes down to love and respect in both directions.
I won’t remember the exact page or story but to broadly paraphrase my remembrance of the conclusions of “Boundaries”, establishing boundaries works best once relationship is established.
Whether or not the children in this article were telling the truth about wanting the stuff, well I certainly hope so. Me, if this had been a parenting decision in my family, I would have said whatever I thought was the “right” thing, not necessarily the emotionally honest thing. Because, unfortunately, there was more fear than relationship.
I doubt any parent wants to be the subject of their child’s therapy later in life. 🙂
To everyone doing this most important job, may wisdom, patience, and confidence be yours.

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Mim on September 25 at
I realize this post was posted a few years ago, but I LOVE it. After growing up with my mother who was in part a hoarder (not like you see on TV, but a hoarder none-the-less) I like the whole not a lot of possessions concept.
I practice this with my own children, clearing up and out, having only a minimal amount of toys. Unfortunately for me, we were given 3 garbage bags full of toys a month ago, that I didn’t have the heart to clean out, as of yet.
I applaud the courage (or just being fed up enough) to take all of the toys away, even if you kept them and allow the kids to play with them sometimes. Being able to do anything for hours is awesome in this day an age (when kids sit in front of te tv or video games or hours at a time).
Awesome post and I support your decision! Great job mom!
Sarah on September 25 at
Clearly, someone’s never seen Toy Story 2
Sarah Therkildsen on September 19 at
Thank you!!
after months of not being able to walk in the toy room my husband finally literally shoveled up most of the toys into boxes and removed them from the toy room. Now we can start from scratch with the clean floor and figure out which toys are staying and which are going and I think I am going to take my sweet time with this
Angela on September 19 at
What an interesting post, and interesting follow-up comments. Plenty of opinions obviously!
I don’t have children myself, but my brother does and I’ve been a babysitting or nanny since I was 11, and of course, a child myself at one time. 🙂
As with so much of parenting, the question of whether this act was traumatic or not completely depends on the individual personalities involved and the parent/child relationship.
I don’t want to assume anything of the lives of the negative commenters but speaking as a person who gets riled about spanking articles, I can attest that it can be hard to be neutral about tough love parenting when one had an unhappy childhood in general, or specific traumas. All combined with perhaps a particularly sensitive personality.
A couple of things stood out that perhaps I would have approached differently in this situation, and have, when I have the opportunity to “parent” children I am caring for.
Again, no assumption that this training was lacking, but I have noticed that sometimes children are ordered to clean their room but are not instructed as to how to do this. Age appropriate clean-up tasks done with a patient adult with a teaching focus can help children start to be responsible for themselves and their own possessions as well as contribute to the household in general. So when the order to clean is issued, one hopes that the skills are in place for the child to complete the task successfully.
In addition, I hope that emotional and behavioral skills are taught that help children understand “stuff” in general. Until something changes in our culture, plentiful, cheap stuff will continue to be a part of our lives that we need to understand how to manage.
I think for many of us, we naturally like stuff. I think it is a human instinct to acquire. And then we attach. We do better when we learn how to manage the inflow, children included. Keeping the stuff from coming in the door somehow is a good first start.
As for the comments about the lack of stuff that children had back in the good ‘ol days. I was young when that was still the case. I’m not romantic about it. I kept myself occupied by myself with crafts and reading but the lack of stuff didn’t automatically mean lots of great family times. I was left to my own entertainment which I managed to do very comfortably, but I was pretty isolated and lonely and didn’t really learn good social skills.
Not every child has the personality to self-occupy with crafts and reading. Some children need more physical activity, more social interaction, etc. Unless the parent can provide these things, I can see why children get bored and turn to the neurostimulation of games and tv, or if the child truly has some challenging neuropsychology, find their way into the addictions that we all want to keep children away from.
With the boundaries and rights question, I can’t NOT have an emotional reaction with these topics, given my own family background. I believe in the rights of children to have a say in the treatment of their bodies and possessions though I also accept that there are many, many examples of parents needing to have the authority. I think it all comes down to love and respect in both directions.
I won’t remember the exact page or story but to broadly paraphrase my remembrance of the conclusions of “Boundaries”, establishing boundaries works best once relationship is established.
Whether or not the children in this article were telling the truth about wanting the stuff, well I certainly hope so. Me, if this had been a parenting decision in my family, I would have said whatever I thought was the “right” thing, not necessarily the emotionally honest thing. Because, unfortunately, there was more fear than relationship.
I doubt any parent wants to be the subject of their child’s therapy later in life. 🙂
To everyone doing this most important job, may wisdom, patience, and confidence be yours.
- Hope on October 9 at
  I definitely agree with this. Do the right thing, but make sure you aren’t doing something to hurt your child. If my dad had actually tried to listen to me and didn’t resort to punishing me as the first thing, I’d be with less scars on my wrists, minus a suicide attempt or two, and I’d be happy to talk to him and spend time with him.
Um on September 17 at
White people