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 stumbled upon this blog post through facebook (maybe it was Pinterest). The first time I read it, I skimmed through your ideas and thought: "that's a nice ideal to have, but not for me". Well, I couldn't stop thinking about this idea. My daughter just turned two, and I noticed something amazing on a recent family trip out for icecream. She brought with her two small Happy Meal toys which were given to her - a Minion (she LOVES Minions), and a Smurf. She played so happily with those two simple toys the entire time. Placing the Smurf on top of the napkin dispenser, kissing him to knock him off the napkin dispenser, squealing with delight when he hit the table, and doing it all over again was her game of the night. That was my "Dinosaur Moment" as I shall call it, giving credit to your experience. Why on earth does she have so many toys? The more toys she has, the more overwhelmed and distracted she becomes. An overwhelmed, over-stimulated toddler is a ticking time bomb. So.... during nap time today, I pan on going through all her toys in the living room, and narrowing them down. A lot. I will keep certain toys that inspire creativity, enforce social skills, teach concepts, and foster appropriate motor skills. In other words, I will keep craft items, blocks, baby dolls, and a puzzles. From there, I plan to keep only a few toys out at a time. I have a good feeling that she will respond positively to the purging. She always gains a new interest when I rearrange her toys. So here goes nothing...
All that to say thank you for sharing. I look forward to keeping up with your blog in the future. And yes, I realize I practically typed out an entire blog post in my comment. Oops.
my son is 4 years old and i give the baby toys to my daughters. when i feel they are to old for them, than i get rid of them. i never takes toys but i really just skimmed through your post so i have no idea what negative comments you got. if you take toys your kids like from them when they still actually like them, then i think that is a little irrational. stop buying so much toys and let the kids enjoy them.
This is sooo cool! My kids (2 girls - 1 1 boy) have so much, they hardly ever pick up, and if they do the first thing is arguing about who is picking up whose, and "I didn't make that mess"....
They are horrible with the things they have, they loose and don't take care of their things, so a few months ago I took away some 80% of their stuff.... Unfortunately things did not really get much better.... But taking away ALL of it scares me though.... Now we're moving to a new house, and I found the idea of a "toy library" really cool! Anyone who has experience on how to organise this?
I love this post! I have been trying for years to declutter my home. My husband is somewhat of a video-game hoarder. I hate it. I want to put an add on craigslist that says come take it all just leave the personal effects. ugh. So far I have done a good job this year getting rid of things. I realize that the "stuff" in my life originally kept to help me remember things is a ridiculous notion. I have a memory bank in my head and the "stuff" can't go with me when I die. So why not live more simply and remove it all. There is a signifigant age difference between my two kids and I have realized that because I used to work full-time I was always "buying" my sons love with out realizing that was what I was doing. He is used to getting toys and games all the time. Now that his sister is here it has been a power struggle and we have realized we have somewhat raised one of those "entitled" milenials that I despise. We are paying for it now and are very quickly trying to change the damage we have done. I slowly slim down what toys etc my kids have. Someday I will have a clean home without clutter. Thank you for your inspiration!
I LOVE this I am honestly in the middle of doing this right now, I have been working on it all day. I only have one child who is about to turn five and find her constantly telling me she is bored or she can't find something, yet she has two overflowing toy boxes that have accumulated over the years. I also feel that by doing this it will help her become more involved in helping around the house, with less distractions she will be more willing to involve herself in the things I am doing around the house, like cooking dinner or doing dishes.
We have always said if you get a new toy, one must leave...but somehow over time we only applied that to birthdays and holidays. We became consumed with junk...we only had four kids, but our home was filled with plastic junk at every turn. We began to purge, big time....I have spent the last few months purging even more, not just their things but our things as well. We live in a society filled with greed and abundance and the very thought of less makes people instant scream depravity. Such a shame that previous generations have bred such a mindset, and an even bigger shame that our generation is breeding even greedier mindframes.
Recently, we have begun tossing around the idea to move our little family of 7 into a downsized home with land, so our children can be children, so our children can run free and think on their own. I read your article and loved it! It inspired me to purge even greater. Currently, as I type this I am sitting in a room filled with toys in a variety of piles, donate, trash, sell, put away. There have been few tears, mostly "we don't really play with that anyways."
The thing that kills me the most is that we live in a society that expects children to play with "educational toys" yet grades are down and the average standardized test reveals poor grades...guess they are not so "educational" afterall.
Dear Ruth,
I found your site thru this article on Pinerest. I admire your straightforward and honest way of dealing with the toy-clutter problem, and I'm not surprised at all that it has succeeded/is succeeding.
What really moved me, 'tho - to tears - was your own personal story. There, too, your straightforwardness and honesty are apparent. I am so sorry for all the pain you went through, and full of admiration for you for having gotten over it. It is very clear to me as a religeous person, that you were "designed" to do certain things on this earth. The most obvious is to bring your lovely children to this world. Another is all the wisdom, knowledge and help that you make available on your beautiful site, thus improving so many people's lives. I thank you for that.
I would like to wish you lots of good health, love, success and joy in everything you do, as well as your family.
Brurya
What a lovely post! Having just done this with our daughter's room in the past week (quite a coincidence that I stumbled upon this blog now), I have already noticed a change in her behavior, as well as the soon-to-be-already-happening-less-stressful-life, ahead of us. We have always tried to fascinate her, usually with many successes, on such topics, as dinosaurs, ants, etc, teaching her about their "lives" and how they interact, and whatnot. The part that makes it hard, is the distraction from her other toys (NO, not that she is not interested, because we usually expand on topics that peak her interest.), having to do with her attention span, as well.
Thanks so much for sharing! I am so glad you have seen such success with your kiddos!
Hi. I thought this was an interesting idea. I don't have any kids but personally I think it takes a certain pro-active type of mother to do this. It never would have worked with my mother- she never cared that my room was messy or anything like that. I still grew up loving to read and I preferred that to most activities. But if she took away my toys I would have been devastated. Even if I didn't play with them- we had the run of the basement with our huge toy box full of things we had gotten from garage sales.
This is a great read! Good job for what you are doing, I think it's wonderful!