I’m sure there are many in this club, but my kids have way too many toys!

Headache

The one area that I am constantly on my kids about is taking care of their toys.  This is the one chore that we battle over every day.  It doesn’t matter if we take them away and make them buy them back from us, nothing we do seems to work in this area.

Revelation

I was reading Dare to Discipline by Dr. James Dobson and he states in this book that one of the hardest parts about parenting is deciding when a child is being disrespectful/defiant or if they are just exhibiting their natural immature, childlike behaviors.  I got to thinking.  This is the one area where my children are always irresponsible, no other area is this consistent. So, could this be just their area of immaturity?

He also states that rewards for little kids need to be immediate, I think our “buy back” policy just takes too long for their age.  They just find something else to occupy their time.

Motherly Advise

Being at my wits end (after taking EVERY TOY out of my kids’ room) I called my mom to ask her opinion.  Here is what she said:

• Yes, part of toys/picking up etc is just child immaturity
• You have way too many toys for them
• This seems worse than other areas because picking up toys happens many times in a day, where many other areas are once or less per day
• It is very easy to get overwhelmed at their age (even when you have labeled tubs/baskets/bins)
• Take the toys out of their room
• Only allow books in their rooms
• Limit the number of toys they can play with or have out at a time, if they want another toy, they must pick up what they are playing with and choose a toy to “trade” for the one they want
• Her suggested limit was 1-2 toys per age year available and out to play with (so a five year old could have five to ten toys available to play with)
• Constantly rotate toys

Game Plan

Now that the kids’ rooms are void of toys, I plan to:

• Sit them down and have a discussion about taking care of toys
• They will be able to have books in their room, if they take good care of these, we may consider one toy in there
• All toys are to stay in the playroom
• If they want a new toy out, they will have to “trade” for it
• Toys will be properly picked up before starting a new activity

Wish us luck, I will let you know how it turns out!

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Have any suggestions or a toy war story of your own?  Please share in the comments below.