Over the last four plus years, we have accumulated a lot of toys.
Toys for every age and milestone our kids have reached. Toys as gifts. Toys on the random trip to Target. We have tons of books, too, but I’m okay with books. I’m not okay with all the toys.
And you know what’s funny? The same way that I wear the same clothes over and over again and have lots of clothes I never wear, my kids play with the same toys over and over again.
And the clutter and accumulation of toys just leads to messes. They will dump out an entire basket of cars just to find the one car they actually want to play with.
We have some really fantastic learning toys, but we also have a lot of useless toys and duplicates of toys. At one point I was buying two of everything so the kids wouldn’t fight over it. And you know what? They find something else to fight over.
For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.
Luke 12:34
I have made a plan to get rid of more than half of their toys. Why?
-One-
So they take better care of their toys. When they don’t have as many toys, they’ll appreciate the ones they do have and take better care of them. They’ll actually have a mental inventory of what they have.
-Two-
With fewer toys, they’ll become more creative. They’ll be imaginative with their toys, and come up with new, fun ways to play with them.
-Three-
Maybe they will actually play with their toys instead of just dumping them on the floor. Right now, they’ll dump out a basket of little superheroes just to look for one. Then there are messes that take up their play space and make it more difficult to actually play.
-Four-
They’ll become less selfish and have less of a sense of entitlement. They need to hear the word “no” and know what it means to wait for something they really want, and even save for it when they start getting an allowance.
-Five-
The most important thing is teaching them that toys do not make them happy. Material objects are not the source of happiness. And learning this at a young age will help them a lot.
Tomorrow I’ll talk about how exactly we’ve narrowed it down. What we’ve saved, donated, put in storage, etc.
Have you ever had a great toy purge?
This post is Day 15 in 31 Days of Creating White Space