No, I'm not ready to chuck out our kids' toys . . . BUT I think increasingly that kids really don't need much and that the more toys they have, the more trouble they cause.
I have a dear friend with six kids who regularly runs a series on her blog called "Why Kids Don't Need Toys." In these posts, she shows photographs of her kids being super creative with regular household objects. This is a result of her having very few toys in the house for her kids and taking even those away with some regularity when the toys aren't being taken care of.
I thought of her recently because of my kids playing creatively, which they're been doing together since Mary was all of 18 months old and John 3-1/2. Lately there has been a sharp increase in creative play because I moved most of their toys away. I stripped their two bedrooms of many toys (leaving behind only quiet toys and books) to make them havens of peace, in hopes of inspiring more rest. Then I stripped the den entirely of toys to make the before-dinner clean-up easier. As a result, virtually all children's toys are in the bonus room, which is the Official Play Room.
But the kids don't want to play there.
The kids and I keep the play room picked up and orderly, so there is plenty of room for play. The room houses fabulous toys, musical instruments, a dress-up bin, blocks, and so forth. But the kids insist on playing right near wherever I am, so days go by without their entering the play room. Since I am in the kitchen almost all day, the kids play in the adjoining den, which has contained no toys for weeks now. Therefore the kids play a series of imaginative games, such as one of them being a kitty cat or doggie and the other being the owner. Or they're both detectives searching out something that is lost. Or they are launching a rocket ship (this results in endless rounds of them counting down and then racing around wildly making a loud "shhhhh" sound). Since we've been reading "Little House on the Prairie," I've heard them playing games about wolves coming and about building a house. Speaking of building, they build many forts and tents with blankets and many bridges with planks of wood. When I'm upstairs doing chores, the kids want to play nearby me and, since there are few toys upstairs, these same imaginative games result.
It makes me wonder what would happen if I got rid of more of their toys! Chris and I have long thought that the number of toys that American children have is ridiculous. I know that around here, toys promptly turn my sweetly playing children into squabbling hooligans, interrupting my work to negotiate their fights. But they don't fight like that when they're acting out something in imagination.
Also I wonder if children with fewer toys take care of their toys better. With "Little House" on my mind, I wonder how settler children cared for the one doll or one toy they might have had. My children are rough with their toys and when I admonish them not to throw or break their toys, my kids say blithely, "It's okay, we'd just buy a new one." If they had only a few really solid toys, wouldn't they treasure them? My kids have way too many pairs of shoes and the results is that they are daily losing them around the house (despite my having a designated Shoe Area right inside the door), then hunting high and low for just that perfect pair of shoes. Really, if my kids had one pair of dress shoes and one pair of play shoes, would they treat their shoes so poorly?
No, I'm not ready to start chucking toys, but I think I am ready to try an experiment of boxing a good portion of the toys away, with the idea to rotate a smaller number of toys in and out of circulation. This should make cleaning up each day much easier for the children and result in the kids having renewed excitement when they see "new" (old) toys come back into circulation.
What are your thoughts, mamas? Have you tried reducing the number of toys in your house? What were the results?
I love it when you quote me. :)
ReplyDeleteWell you already know what I think.
Let me know if the "treasuring a few things" works for your kids, then I'll know it's just mine who are destructive maniacs no matter WHAT I take away!!!
I have very, very, very few toys. No electronic ones. The only 2 toys we have in the house with small pieces are lincoln logs and wooden blocks and Leo's only allowed to play with those when Jules (age 2) is asleep. I'm BIG into toy control for my own sanity. I just think it brings disorder and chaos into the home to have toys everywhere. Outside my kids have tricycles, swing sets, etc. They key is minimizing toys and not allowing ones with lots of small pieces into the house. I agree - American children have WAY too many toys. It's funny you should blog about this. I was working on a post for my blog on toy management a few hours ago! (Saved in my drafts folder)
ReplyDeleteWe are in the same boat! Matthew only has one pair of shoes at any given time due to his foot being so hard to fit, so I totally advocate just having one pair. It's so easy and never an issue to find them (since they are on or by the door). We are just now beginning to seriously fight the toy fight in our home. We've become "that house" I never wanted to be- filled with far too many toys from top to bottom. This weekend, we cleaned out boxes and boxes of extra toys, outgrown items, etc.
ReplyDeleteI'm going to be very interested to see the other replies to this post from the more experienced mamas!
Update: This morning the kids woke me at 5:30, so I figured we might as well pack away toys at the crack of dawn. In the bonus room, I put 30-40% of the toys into two giant locked drawers. The kids did not bat an eyelash.
ReplyDeleteThey studied the map on the wall, then turned their children's desks over and used them to pretend to "fly" on "cars with guns" to Missouri, where they would leap out and explore before flying again. And now they are playing "bridges" with wood planks in the den.
I think I need to go pack away more toys.
Toys = SIBLING SQUABBLES and GIGANTIC MESSES. Gigantic messes = fights with Mama and big tears from children.
I think you're exactly right. They don't need toys; they don't appreciate them. It just makes it hard on the gift-givers in the family. You better have a lot of book shelves!
ReplyDeleteFirst, this is so timely since I had a mini-meltdown about the mess last night!
ReplyDeleteAnyway, I'm of several minds about toys. It's been my philosophy that because of several factors (we lived in an isolated rural location, the kids didn't go to daycare, and no school in their future) that we needed a good variety of toys, both inside and out. I am also anti-electronic toys and anti-screen time. I also require that toys be open-ended. We have around 1,000 children's books (most from both my teaching days and my mother's) and lots of art supplies and musical instruments. Other than Legos, all the toys are wood, essentially indestructible, and heirloom quality. Outside we have bikes, a swing set, helicopter teeter totter (makes regular trips to Mars), an Aquaplay, and sandbox.
They have both had a maturity leap lately and the squabbles have decreased and the pick-up help increased.BUT.
BUT.
It's TOO MUCH.
I feel stifled. Between the toys and all the "school-y" things: manipulative, puzzles, art supplies, it seems like the whole house is kid-oriented even though their rooms are toy-free and everything is in the playroom or school room.
Often, the scenario you and Sarah Faith describe is what we see around here too. They'll play ALL DAY, and do I don't even know what. They chatter and keep themselves busy mostly without the use of many toys. Blocks and trucks (and the sandbox) and that's really all that's necessary when they do turn to actual toys.
So, I struggle with the same thing and therefore am no help! LOL.
Well, I have an Amazon wish list of about four pages worth of books (paper and audio) that I want for the kids, and my oldest is only four! So if the gift-givers in the family would give mostly books and not toys, we'd be set and I'm never going to run out of titles for them! :D
ReplyDeleteWe rarely buy toys for the kids, but somehow, they just accumulate and multiply, and I'm constantly going through them and whittling them down. I'm not at all anti-toy, my kids are actually really good about not fighting over them, they share well, still partake in creative play sans toys (oh, the fun they had with a huge cardboard box, for DAYS, last week...I finally had to get rid of it, because THAT was taking over and getting in the way more than the toys), and I don't mind the clutter...with that said, I do like trying to scale down a bit (which reminds me, I need to do again!).
ReplyDeleteAs for shoes...my kids have maybe two or three pairs each (in use that is...I don't count the ones that are either too small or too big that I have stored away): play shoes, dressy shoes, and sandals. I just don't see the need for them to have a huge collection when they just grow out of them after a couple months.
Katherine - super interesting post. I really enjoyed reading it. i also like the idea of making the kids' rooms 'havens of peace'.
ReplyDeleteI think in general people have too many, I probably have too many specifically, and we have fewer than many people I know.
I had to comment on this one: "Really, if my kids had one pair of dress shoes and one pair of play shoes, would they treat their shoes so poorly?"
I tried, tried, tried doing this with my oldest son and his gloves. But he'd lose them anyway, and I'd have to have the choice of sending him to school (for how long?) with no gloves, no outdoor recess, sore hands? I broke and bought (more than one other) pair of gloves. I think his issue is more forgetfulness than the disposable gloves theory... but how many times do I replace it? If only I knew. He "lost" his shoes somewhere and we haven't come on them in the past 3 days. Do I keep having him wear his brother's boots? Or do I go spend $30 on another pair of shoes (older kid shoes of any quality are somewhat... expensive for my tastes!) Do you have any thoughts on that one?
I've been thinking about this a lot over the past few days. I've been clearing out things in the school room-- yay! Games we haven't played or duplicate something else-- gone!
ReplyDeleteIt occurred to me that I do much better in other areas than toys. My kids only have one pair of sneakers, seasonally appropriate boots, sandals, and crocs. That means nine months of the year they only have sneakers and snow boats. They don't treat them badly or lose them. In general, I'm much better about limits with essentials than toys (and books). They have several complete outfits, two mix-and-match spares, three jammies, and one Sunday outfit. One winter coat, one rain coat, two sweatshirts, one hat per season, two pairs of mittens (one for snow, one for the car). Toys, though...we just have a lot in a wide variety.
Part of it for many of us, I think, is that we cycle through seasons. We don't have two kids then move on from "baby season" to "big kid" life. Baby season comes around again (Praise God!). So, we have a lot of stuff. I guess I'm lucky in one respect since I have all boys, at least I'm not storing two sets of clothes! ;-)
I've considered many of these points myself... but what have I done about it? Not much! I have "thinned" out toys by removing and storing ones that are not age-appropriate or haven't been played with in a long time, but I often struggle to actually discard or give away toys.
ReplyDeleteOften I want to save toys for the next child to come along b/c I saw that it provided good entertainment before.
And while getting rid of toys is a good exercise in detachment (for ME and the kids), I dislike the disposable mentality of our world today - and the kids definitely pick up on it! Just like you said, when something breaks, I have heard my own kids say as well, "It's OK, we can just buy another one."
I am learning lessons as I go along... while I think that *we* will now only invest in high quality durable toys, I've got family that just love to always bring SOMETHING to kids whenever they visit (could be several times a year) and that something is usually the cheapest of the cheap toys (and/or noisy/electronic a/o licensed cartoon).
What do you and others do vis a vis family who like to gift cheap and/or branded toys and clothes, etc? I am contemplating an email stating our preferences for the future, but I don't know if that would be considered rude or presumptuous. Is there a certain amount of time we should keep those sorts of gifts? Do we need to allow the kids to at least play with them for a little while before openly or secretly removing them from the home? What are the lessons we are purposely or inadvertently teaching and how do we best manage that in accord with our values?
Christine: Oh, I don't actually know how kids would treat shoes and such if they had fewer of them! I was just surmising that it would probably be better than my kids treat their BINS full of shoes. It's hard for me to limit myself buying them shoes since I buy them for about $4 per pair at the consignment store. But now I am incented by the sheer number of them not to want to own so many.
ReplyDeleteCourtney: I know what you mean about cycling through seasons. I hesitate to donate things away because I expect to have more children. So, I have bins for every size in both genders. Although it is occurring to me that even that might be silly, as right now the soonest I'd expect to be opening my boy's newborn clothing would be 6.5 years since they were last worn. What kind of shape will they be in? The elastic? Will they be in style anymore? Maybe it wasn't worth taking up all that storage space!
ReplyDeleteSarah W.: I don't think it promotes a disposable culture to routinely cull our plethora of toys and give them away. Every time we do it, the kids come with me to Goodwill and we chat about how we are blessed with so much, and some other people are very poor and can't afford to buy very many things, so we will donate our things and then they can enjoy them. I know my kids can understand that only at a very basic level, but they do parrot it back to me.
ReplyDeleteToday I pulled more toys out of the bedrooms and saved them in bins to rotate in and out. These were toys the kids like. But when they're surrounded by so many toys, all of which they like, many toys get ignored and daily clean-up is an awful time of conflict. I'm hoping that having fewer items out at a time will help.
As far as family goes, I keep a list of gifts I know our kids would like and many of our family members ask me for ideas at gift-giving times.
Katherine: from further on down the road than you - much of my baby stuff has lasted through 4 boys (oldest boy is 10, boy #4/child #6 is wearing much of it now) but the older the baby the less of the stuff that's being worn is from baby #1. I have virtually nothing saved after age 3 (for boys). Given that my youngest girl is 4, I have given away almost all of my girl stuff save for some special occasion dresses. Figure that if that time comes again and it IS a girl, I can relatively inexpensively get more while I've enjoyed the space of not having carton upon carton of baby girl stuff.
ReplyDeleteSome of it, I open for Andrew (space between Aaron and Andrew is a bit over 6 years, 2 girls in between) and I think... oh my NO! and I pass it along. Andrew and Aidan are only 18 mos apart so it seems I barely put something away for Andrew before I end up getting out familiar stuff again for Aidan.
I want to share this list of Clutter-Free Gifts. I am a big fan of consumable gifts and experience gifts.
ReplyDeletehttp://www.flylady.net/pages/ClutterFreeGiftsC.asp