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.

Want to know what happened? Read the updates here:

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Jenna on April 30 at

This post gives me conflicting feelings.

On one hand, I understand where you’re coming from. I was spoiled rotten as a kid and though I like to think I turned out okay, I have problems with hoarding (frankly, my whole family has problems with hoarding) and I strangely believe that a messy and cluttered environment can affect your state of mind. Personally though, I think my mom’s childhood affected how we live. She grew up in a large, poor family that moved a lot and the few toys that were hers were destroyed by her brothers. Though she says little about her childhood, I think that situation greatly affected her, especially not having control over her own possessions. I believe that powerlessness affected her as an adult and that is why she has so many things and why she gave me so many things. So I am concerned how you took the girls’ toys away so suddenly without their input. But, I get your position. All this clutter drives me crazy too.

It is true that not all toys are played with and can just be clutter, but they can be so influential too. My American Girl doll Felicity inspired my love of history. I used to play school with all my other dolls which has strangely given me an interest in child development. Other toys I characterized gave me a love for making up stories. I can’t possibly count all the ways my toys, and how I could control my access to them, influenced me. But yes, there were a lot of toys that weren’t played with and I had huge problems with giving those away. Decluttering would have helped with that.

Honestly, I am also a bit concerned that you may be expecting too much of your children so early. The pictures of their rooms don’t even look like real girls live there. I have seen staged houses on sale that looked more lived in and more comfortable. It reminds me of my aunt who is a control freak and a perfectionist, similar to what I see in these pictures. Her two daughters, now adults, have issues (one of them has serious depression) and my aunt’s marriage fell apart. Of course, everybody’s experience will be different, but I think we can agree that perfection is unattainable and stressing about it can be harmful. A little clutter does not hurt. I hope these pictures were just staged for the blog and it’s not what it looks like everyday.

I know I’ve been all over the place in this post so I’ll sum up my point. Perhaps there can be a middle ground to this. Perhaps giving children a limit of how many toys they have is beneficial, like a shelf or toy box. If a toy goes in, a toy comes out, and the child chooses what goes out. I think this way they feel ownership of their possessions, have access to those toys without having to ask an adult, choose toys that encourage their interests, make cleaning a little easier, and learn how to declutter and organize on their own. I do understand that your girls still have toys you rotate through (by the way, your original post is a little sensational, making the impression that they have no toys /at all/, which probably explains some of the negative reaction), but I’m not convinced it’s the right method. In a way, perhaps it’s telling them that Mommy will take care of decluttering and organizing, instead of learning it on their own.

And, one last thought on your daughter’s obsession over a toy on a trip: I’ve always thought of those times as teaching moments, rather than something to change your lifestyle over. Children do gravitate towards wanting more things, and I think just saying “no” is the starting point for kids to learn on their own that life doesn’t revolve around things. Sometimes they just need to work out their anger and frustration before they realize it on their own. Even though I was spoiled, I was told “no” and eventually, even I learned not to demand things and to enjoy the moment.

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Jenna on April 30 at
This post gives me conflicting feelings.
On one hand, I understand where you’re coming from. I was spoiled rotten as a kid and though I like to think I turned out okay, I have problems with hoarding (frankly, my whole family has problems with hoarding) and I strangely believe that a messy and cluttered environment can affect your state of mind. Personally though, I think my mom’s childhood affected how we live. She grew up in a large, poor family that moved a lot and the few toys that were hers were destroyed by her brothers. Though she says little about her childhood, I think that situation greatly affected her, especially not having control over her own possessions. I believe that powerlessness affected her as an adult and that is why she has so many things and why she gave me so many things. So I am concerned how you took the girls’ toys away so suddenly without their input. But, I get your position. All this clutter drives me crazy too.
It is true that not all toys are played with and can just be clutter, but they can be so influential too. My American Girl doll Felicity inspired my love of history. I used to play school with all my other dolls which has strangely given me an interest in child development. Other toys I characterized gave me a love for making up stories. I can’t possibly count all the ways my toys, and how I could control my access to them, influenced me. But yes, there were a lot of toys that weren’t played with and I had huge problems with giving those away. Decluttering would have helped with that.
Honestly, I am also a bit concerned that you may be expecting too much of your children so early. The pictures of their rooms don’t even look like real girls live there. I have seen staged houses on sale that looked more lived in and more comfortable. It reminds me of my aunt who is a control freak and a perfectionist, similar to what I see in these pictures. Her two daughters, now adults, have issues (one of them has serious depression) and my aunt’s marriage fell apart. Of course, everybody’s experience will be different, but I think we can agree that perfection is unattainable and stressing about it can be harmful. A little clutter does not hurt. I hope these pictures were just staged for the blog and it’s not what it looks like everyday.
I know I’ve been all over the place in this post so I’ll sum up my point. Perhaps there can be a middle ground to this. Perhaps giving children a limit of how many toys they have is beneficial, like a shelf or toy box. If a toy goes in, a toy comes out, and the child chooses what goes out. I think this way they feel ownership of their possessions, have access to those toys without having to ask an adult, choose toys that encourage their interests, make cleaning a little easier, and learn how to declutter and organize on their own. I do understand that your girls still have toys you rotate through (by the way, your original post is a little sensational, making the impression that they have no toys /at all/, which probably explains some of the negative reaction), but I’m not convinced it’s the right method. In a way, perhaps it’s telling them that Mommy will take care of decluttering and organizing, instead of learning it on their own.
And, one last thought on your daughter’s obsession over a toy on a trip: I’ve always thought of those times as teaching moments, rather than something to change your lifestyle over. Children do gravitate towards wanting more things, and I think just saying “no” is the starting point for kids to learn on their own that life doesn’t revolve around things. Sometimes they just need to work out their anger and frustration before they realize it on their own. Even though I was spoiled, I was told “no” and eventually, even I learned not to demand things and to enjoy the moment.
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Anonymous on April 16 at
I just read your article and loved it! I am a mother of 3 kids, ages 15,11& 5 . I think you have done what most Moms want to do but aren’t sure what would happen. I have not read all the other comments from others nor do I care, I think you have the right idea & are trying to instill family time and real values to your kids, I say kudos to you!
Sincerely,
Jennifer H.
Lea on March 27 at
Wow you’re teaching your kids never to ask for anything ever again out of fear that you will take it away from them. I bet you follow all the Pearl’s teachings about how to raise children too. Please never share your ‘insights’ with other people again. I would like to talk to your children and tell them that the abuse they are receiving is not their fault and they have done nothing wrong.
Leigh on March 18 at
I would love to received daily or weekly info from you and your wonderful blog & website.