Help! The Toys are Taking Over!
This article originally appeared in the March 7, 2021 edition of the Kingsport Times-News. Click here for the original PDF.
Recently I had the opportunity to work with a family with three young children. I helped the mother organize several rooms of the house, including the living room, playroom, and children’s bedrooms. As we sorted through the contents of these rooms, we encountered many different types of items. The most common by far was toys. We sorted toys of all types: stuffed animals, cars, animal figurines, baby dolls, building blocks, games, sports figurines, and more.
Each time I help families with young children organize, I notice many similarities. Although most families attempt to limit the amount of toys their children receive, the sheer number mysteriously multiplies. And, despite the family’s best efforts to limit the rooms in which toys are allowed, the toys manage to travel to other rooms anyway. Before you know it, toys are everywhere, and they’re a major contributor to clutter. It’s a constant struggle to stay on top of the situation. Today I’m sharing some common practices that have proved particularly helpful to tame the toy takeover.
The same basic principles and steps to organize anything also work with toys. The 3 basic steps are: declutter, arrange, and maintain. I’ll include specific techniques that work especially well for toys. I’ll also provide tips for including children in the process and teaching them organizing skills along the way. If the children are old enough, I highly recommend that you involve them in every part of the process!
Decluttering
It will probably come as no surprise that the main issue for most families with regard to toys is that there are simply too many. Decluttering is always the best first step. Focusing on quality over quantity is an excellent precept to follow. Both children and adults get overwhelmed with too many choices. The following tips are helpful for decluttering:
80/20 rule: In any category, we tend to use 20% of the items 80% of the time. Whether we’re talking about coffee mugs, shirts, or toys, we almost always gravitate towards our favorites. Take a hard look at the toys, and only keep the ones that the children actually play with regularly.
Toys that are easy candidates for decluttering:
Duplicates
Toys that are broken or have missing pieces
Toys that are no longer developmentally appropriate
Toy rotation: Just because you’ve kept a toy doesn’t mean it has to always be available. Limiting the number of toys on hand is a great way to decrease the overwhelming number of choices. Store some away. After a few weeks or months, switch them out with the ones they’ve been playing with for a while. It’s likely that the children will be excited to see them again and have a renewed interest, also helping them exercise their creativity.
Container concept:
Definition: Containers hold items, but they also limit them. Based on its size, a container can only hold a certain number of items. By choosing a container, we can limit how many items we keep.
Example: Imagine a playroom with a furniture piece with 8 cube openings with a container in each one. Make a goal that all of the toys would be contained or limited to those 8 containers. If the children are old enough, let them help decide what toys to keep and what toys to donate so other children can play with them. Encourage the children to start with their favorites. They want to make sure there is room for the toys they like most.
Arranging
Now that you’ve decluttered, you can turn your attention to figuring out the best arrangement of the remaining toys.
Set aside toys for rotation: If you’ve kept more toys than can fit well in the space, you’ll need to set some aside.
Leave some open space: Children need plenty of open floor space to play. A few large toys may need to stay on the floor. While that’s appropriate for these large toys, smaller ones should be kept off the floor.
Sort into categories: Sorting is a great way to teach organizing skills, and children usually enjoy the process. There will likely be some toys that don’t necessarily fit into a category. It may be necessary to have a basket or two that is miscellaneous.
Label each basket with words and pictures of the items stored inside it (especially for non-readers or early readers). Children can help with labeling, like an art project.
Maintain
Once order is established, the new challenge is to maintain. The more you involve the children in the plan and its execution, the more likely they will learn organizing skills. Those skills are useful throughout their entire lives and they may thank you for it—when they’re older!
Make a plan: Maintenance definitely won’t happen without a consistent plan!
Limit how many toys are out at once. Teach children to put away toys before getting out new ones. This step alone goes a long way towards maintaining order.
I highly recommend a daily 5 minute pickup towards the end of each day. This applies not only to toys, but to all areas of the house. Involve the whole family. You can make it fun by adding music or giving a challenge such as seeing who can find and place the most items back in their proper home.
Sometimes there is more to pick up than can be reasonably be accomplished in 5 minutes. Try scheduling a weekly more involved cleanup.
Prevent the influx: A key part of maintenance is to prevent a big influx of new toys.
Declutter again before a birthday or a holiday where they traditionally receive gifts (Christmas, Hanukkah, Easter, etc.).
Practice a one in, one out policy so that the number of toys doesn’t continue to grow. When a new toy is brought into the home, one needs to go out or into rotation.
Emphasize experiences over things. Instead of giving a child more plastic animal figurines, take them to the zoo. Encourage experiences over things as gift ideas as well. A child probably won’t remember that their grandparents gave them another Lego set. But they’ll likely remember the Saturday they went on a hike and a picnic together.
If you’re ready to tame the toys in your home, remember the key steps: declutter (decrease the number), arrange (using containers), and maintain (with a plan to regularly put toys away and to prevent overaccumulation). I hope you find these principles helpful, and that working through these steps with your children will make a big difference in your home.