Talking about Kid Clutter this week. More here.
Back in November we cut out the kid’s screen time for two weeks. I don’t think our kids watch a lot of television, maybe a few hours on the weekend, and the oldest gets a handful of twenty minute segments on the iPad each week. But our oldest was asking incessantly for more iPad time. We were really tired of the asking and it was dominating the household conversation. Felt like a good time for a reset. So, no television and no iPad time for two weeks.
Week one with no screens was hard. He continued to ask and we continued to redirect to other activities. Us parents were really tired at the end of the weekend. Putting the television on while the baby naps is our recipe for some peace and quiet – particularly helpful if one, or three, of the kids didn’t sleep well the previous night.
At the beginning of week two something changed. Our oldest stopped asking for iPad time and started finding his own amusements. One morning I was making breakfast and I came out to find the two big boys coloring. They had woken up and our oldest had pulled out some markers and paper for both of them to draw and color before breakfast. It was a turning point. I noticed the rest of that week that they were playing longer with their toys and more deeply. They could spend a few hours building something with Lego and even amuse themselves with their ‘jump from couch to pouf’ game for longer. They played with fewer things for longer.
We’ve let the screens come back in a bit in the last two months but each time we see that for our kids, less really is more right now. I know every child is different and every family is different, but our kids do better with limited screen time. They are better behaved and the oldest is more alert in the classroom. Our oldest had a development spurt – learned to swim on his own and had a big jump in learning to read – in the weeks following our no screen-free time. They’re now even giving us some rest windows on the weekend when they play nicely with each other for two hours.
Our no screen experiment revealed not only that our kids do better with limited or no screen time, it also revealed what toys are being played with regularly and what engages them deeply. What they enjoy and what engages them deeply aren’t necessarily the toys that I would pick for them. Waldorf inspired fair trade toys make me really happy. I love the craftsmanship, the beauty of a simple design made with quality materials, and imagining how nice my home would look with only hand carved play fruit and a toy kitchen made of up-cycled wood as reminders that children live here.
My reality: Lego and a wooden train set dominate my kids toy collection. Many of the beautiful toys they have received, a wooden car, knit play fruit, haven’t held their interest at all. Sadly, some of my favorite toys of theirs have been some of the most obvious ones to donate.
If you want to reduce Kid Clutter you have to be honest about what your kids really play with, wear and enjoy.
Even the gifts from well-meaning relatives and friends.
Even things you bought to keep them quiet on a long shop at Target.
Even the beautiful toys you so hoped your children would love and cherish as much as you love looking at them.
First, find a system that works for your family. There were many comments on my last post on Facebook and here on the blog that a ‘fly by night’ declutter is too harsh and not fair to kids. You know your kids best and you know your own threshold for stuff best.
For now, this system works with my kids. I hope that soon our oldest can be part of the process and eventually they’ll let go of things they don’t need or aren’t using all on their own. But right now they’re 6, 3 and 1 and just as we set the house rules, bath nights, teeth brushing and what’s served at dinner, we’ll also make decisions about what stays and what goes.
If a fly-by-night clean out won’t work for your house start small. Here are some ideas for reducing kid clutter:
- Inform the household there will be some changes. Toys left out overnight will be ‘jailed’ for a week. Toys left out three times will be donated.
- Ask the kid’s to fill a box to donate to children who have no toys.
- If your child has been begging for something tell them you will help them save for it by buying some of their toys from them (or help them sell them on eBay or on a local buy and sell).
Another big one on toy clutter: don’t own it if you can borrow or play with it somewhere else. My older children have remote control cars… that live at Grandma’s house. They were gifts from her and we don’t have space to store or play with them indoors. It is such a treat for the kids to go out for a visit and have a special toy to play with.
If you frequent a play gym or church drop-in that has toys your kids love, let them love those toys there – don’t buy that same toy for home. If their good friend has an awesome collection of Shopkins and they play happily with said Shopkins for hours when visiting that friend, leave it at that. You don’t need to own everything your child takes an interest in.
Think your kids need more variety? There are now services like Pley.com and ToysTrunk.com that you can rent toys from if you want to trade up or even an app that allows kids to trade their toys with one another. There’s also old fashioned trading toys for a week with a friend. Ask your kids to get creative if they want to refresh their toy box with some new stuff.
More resources and ideas for dealing with kid clutter:
Rachel of The Small Notebook has her young daughter pick toys to keep and toys to give away.
Brook of Slow Your Home does the same evil Santa Clause routine that I do…
Why Fewer Toys Will Benefit Your Kids by Joshua Becker.
Next up: How To Keep Kid Clutter From Coming Back. Yes, just like head lice, curing it once doesn’t mean it won’t hit your home again.
I hated when the kids constantly begged for TV or movies and I was the good guy or bad guy depending on the answer. And the constant asking was annoying so I finally made a rule, no weekday TV. there were no limits on weekends but weekdays were off limits (unless a child was off school sick). made life a lot easier. Weekends had enough going on that it was rare they could spend a whole day watching Nd rarely chose to anyway.
Hi, thanks for the work you put into your blog I’m really enjoying reading it. Kids toys have always been a struggle for me in reducing clutter. Here are a couple of things I have found with my boys over the years that might help others too. When they were young their personality played a big part in whether they could help with a declutter. I had one boy who knew his mind and very easily named toys he wanted to give away and I could easily involve him in a declutter. The other boy wanted to keep everything (including scraps if paper) and I had to do secret culls when he wasn’t around. Now they are older (10 and 8) I have found the kon marie method works well. We pull everything out and I get them to touch it and say whether it makes them happy inside. Even works with my hoarder who happily lets stuff go with this method and what he does keep he takes better care of. Hope that helps others. Love your screen free experience, think I need to try that. 🙂
I am beyond thrilled that as of today we move to our home without TV. The past 4 months have been challenging as we have been house sitting in homes with many TV’s etc and none of G’s toys beyond her few faves. Of course we have a computer and she will get to have DVD’s etc but I am certain, like your boys, she will warm to finding other things to do quickly.
Yeah! Great that you are moving in. 🙂
I would love to have no tv. I don’t like that it is the focal point of our living room. I know the kids would be fine with it because they’ve gone long stretches without watching it but my partner… he is really enjoying watching hockey games on it. Maybe someday! Great to hear from you and hope all is well 🙂
Love this. I feel like I’m always donating my kids toys because of holidays and birthdays. Even though we’ve cut back giving our kids gifts, the grandparents have not 🙂 My 4 year old has grasped what we are giving away toys to kids who don’t have as many. It will take some time for my younger two. We are leaving on a long RV trip soon so we’ll have to pare down toys even more!
How exciting to have an RV trip in your future. 🙂
Yes, we’re always donating toys too. The kids got a lot this Christmas. So much that I packed about 2/3rds of it away, returned half of the packed away stuff for store credit and then I’ll bring out the gifts that are left slowly in the next few months. I read a lot of comments from parents that have children that remember every last thing/toy – I’m really lucky that mine don’t right now!! They forgot about most of the Christmas gifts the day after they opened them.
WOW, so much good information! I especially appreciate the encouragement about limiting screen time…we are definitely in the dog days of winter here in Minnesota, and it is tempting to let the kids watch TV or play on the computer all day just to preserve my sanity, but reading about all of the benefits of doing the opposite is VERY inspiring to me…thank you!
Winter is hard. We have a very mild winter and it’s still challenging us to find more creative indoor play. We’re still able to put on all the rain gear and hit the park but that’s a two hour venture at most.
And I completely agree about the double edge sword of screen time for kid. It can be such a nice break for parents and of course the kids enjoy it. But our kids end up making us pay for that quiet with poor behavior and whining for more tv/ipad time. The first week of the break was really hard. We were counting the minutes to bed time on the weekends. But it really started to get easier for all of us on week 2 – the kids were content with reading a lot of books before bed and stopped asking to watch a Netflix show. I hope we can continue tv/screen light life and do some longer breaks from it too. Good luck!
I love the ide of ‘buying’ their old toys to pay for something new.
*idea
This post made me bag-up some of My kids soft animals and now I’m going back for some plastic toys, Only played with when I try to declutter their Rooms… Tank you for inspiration!
I love the toy buy back idea, and I can definitely relate to wanting my son to love handmade wooden toys the best! My 18 month old son currently plays with animal figurines, our broom, a jar full of lids (i keep the ones from pouches of baby food), some cars and his sandpit. I put a few toys away last night but I could probably be more brutal with how many cars are out.
But now this post wants me to go out and buy a Mr Potatohead for my son. I think I still have work to do before I truly embrace minimalism…
“If your child has been begging for something tell them you will help them save for it by buying some of their toys from them (or help them sell them on eBay or on a local buy and sell).”
A toy buy back–interesting idea!
When I started my journey of becoming a minimalist, toys were the hardest things to let go of. I love some of my kids toys and they had no real interest in them, those were the hardest to go. I still struggle a bit.
Would love to see some photos of your minimalist toy collection!
I disagree that your children are too young to help declutter and make decisions about what toys stay.
When my daughter was 2 we started discussing how donating toys benefits others. From that age on she has had some* say in what stays and what goes.
Now we have a 7, 4, and 2 year
old along with a 7 month old. And they know that every summer (before birthdays) and every winter (before Christmas) that we need to go through the toys and get rid of things that aren’t our
favorite or don’t bring us joy.
The last two years they have reminded me that summer toy decluttering was coming up! It is a part of our life and everyone gets to have a say in what stays and what goes 🙂
Our family goal for this year though is to be more intentional with our spending and purchases so we have less to donate so we can be kinder to the environment. Because we include all ages in these processes it is just part of our life 🙂
I do admire your two week reset…I may get brave and try that this summer!
Thank you for your books and site, I love how this keeps me on track!
Christa – that’s fantastic that your child was ready to help select toys to keep and toys to give away at age 2.
I should clarify that I think it’s of course possible to start younger and many parents do so with great success. It’s just now what we are doing. I’m very open to families choosing the method that works the best for them and their kids. I know our system will change as the boys get older.