Raising Minimalists: Toys.featured
A couple months after Christmas, we found ourselves in a familiar slump of managing the influx of stuff collected over the holidays. Everything had a place, but the room seemed perpetually full of toys, and our nightly cleanup was turning into a battle we didn’t want to fight. Adding to the frustration was the fact that when I looked around the room, I couldn’t pinpoint any toys that we didn’t use and could easily part with. A rare first for me. So I made a decision. While we enjoyed and found value in all of the items, we didn’t need all of it accessible all of the time. Too much of a good thing is still too much.
Having been immersed in the minimalist community for quite a while at this point, I had read several articles by parents who had decided that enough was enough and given away the vast majority of their kids’ toys in one fell swoop. Rather than the anticipated meltdowns, their children had responded with relief and gratitude. I took a slightly different approach with similar results. I told the girls we were packing away all of their toys except their blocks and a few balls. I was confident from the articles I’d read that this wouldn’t lead to long term trauma on their part, but I was still surprised at their enthusiasm. Without a hint of resistance, they couldn’t bring me things to put away quickly enough. Even Emma seemed to catch on and want to help. We put everything in their closet, which they can’t access, and went about our day. For hours afterward, they brought me toys we’d missed and asked me to put them away too.
My initial plan was to see what happened by removing the toys from sight for two weeks. They didn’t ask for any of them in that time. Not once. And all of the items are still packed away today. We moved them to a front closet and organized them into loose categories, and we bring them out occasionally when they ask or as a change of pace on a string of rainy or wintry days. Most days, they are perfectly content to play with their favorite toys: our shoes, whatever is in the dishwasher, and folded laundry.
Having toys put away means a quick nightly cleanup that is manageable for a three year old. It also helps us all appreciate them more when they are brought out. Like a toddler musical performed when Jeff is not post night shift. And playing with the farm animals and cars their grandparents gave them when their grandparents come over. And enjoying memory games and puzzles that Jeff and I bring out more frequently now that they’re not adding to a wealth of toys already spread around the room. Molly summarized our new set up perfectly a couple weeks ago while showing my brother a toy she wanted to bring down: “it’s up here because we don’t like a lot of stuff all over the place. Because then we can’t see it.”
