Why Minimizing Toys Leads to More Creative Play (and Less Stress)

Do you sometimes find yourself wishing your kids had fewer toys but you don’t know how to start minimizing?

Before minimalism, this was me. I’d walk through our home, head spinning from dodging yet another needing-to-be-picked-up toy pile.

We owned a staggering amount of toys, which, I soon realized lent itself more to mess-making than creative play. Unless you consider dumping doctor’s kits, overturning toy bins, and strewing play food about the living room floor creative. I didn’t.

While too many toys in the home is certainly a first-world issue, it’s a real source of stress for parents and children in our culture. This phenomenon of toy accumulation began in 1955 and is still going strong today. In fact, the United States now contains about 3.1% of the world’s children but 40% of the world’s toys.

Research from sociologist Juliet Schor’s book Born to Buy, found that the average American child receives seventy new toys a year.

The majority of our culture has accepted these facts—minimizing toys is not the norm.

But for our family, I couldn’t help but observe that living with so many toys in the home just wasn’t working. Constantly picking up and putting away toys often left me distracted, frustrated, and exhausted instead of present to our kids; I knew something had to change.

I first decided to minimize our toy collection for my own sake, but I had reservations. Would I be depriving our girls of an important part of childhood by not having all their toys out at once? I wondered if they would act out in anger or would meltdown when a missing toy was needed. Would I be harming them more than helping them by minimizing toys?

I turned to Kim John Payne’s book Simplicity Parenting for support. My toy-minimization fears quickly subsided. The research stating that fewer toys promotes more peaceful, deeper, and meaningful play made sense to me.

I began to think about toys differently. While a mix of toys was an important part of our girls’ world of play, I realized it should not be the overwhelming center. I started to wonder about how the number of toys in our home affected our girls.

Could a more manageable number of toys facilitate our five year old’s role in caring for her own toys? Did a mountain of toys teach our girls to undervalue them all—always holding out for the next best thing and always wanting “more?” Payne’s research said yes.

I wanted our home environment to encourage an appreciation for what we have and an opportunity for creative, meaningful play. That was enough motivation for me to take toy simplification seriously.

Here’s what I did, and what you can do, to minimize toys:

1. Line up childcare for your children, preferably out of the house for the initial toy purge. Collect all the toys in the home into one room, even if it’s a massive amount. (Payne recommends doing this initial toy purge without your child, whether they’re 2 or 12, so they don’t “profess undying love for all of the things they never play with [and for] the toys that have been broken and long forgotten.” Teach your kid’s how to minimize toys later on in maintenance decluttering).

2. Next, separate the toys into three piles: beloved toys that are played with daily, toys that serve a purpose for imaginary play, and toys that are not played with daily.

3. Toys played with daily and toys encouraging imaginary play (think: dress-up clothes) stay in the home. Place toys that are liked but are not played with daily into 18-gallon plastic containers (or black trash bags) for storage. Put these plastic containers in the basement (or somewhere out of sight) for the time being. Don’t donate anything yet, but instead change the home’s environment significantly and observe.

When I was done minimizing toys, about 10 percent of the toys remained in our home. I organized most of them in my five-year-old’s room, leaving a small number of beloved toys visible.

Dress-up clothes went in one dresser drawer. Dolls went in a small wooden bench. A couple games, balls, and some building toys went to the living room. I placed them in small, covered containers to limit visual clutter.

When the girls came home, I held my breath.

Our one-year-old wouldn’t care about the changes, but I had no idea how our five-year-old would react. I told her that I had organized the toys today and that her room looked different. I said that all her toys were still in the house and if there was one she couldn’t find but wanted, then she could ask me for it.

She peeked into her room, and I’ll never forget her reaction. She looked back at me, beaming, and excitedly said, “Mom! Thank you!” She loved having all the extra space. And I breathed a sigh of relief.

Over the next few months, I continued to observe our home with fewer toys. Creative play increased, the amount of time engaged in play extended, and the girls participated in clean-up more often.

When toys in storage were asked for, I would retrieve them, but we would return other toys to storage so the number of toys in the home stayed roughly the same. I did this with our five-year-old’s help and explained to her why it was important to have “just the right amount” of toys in the home.

After three months, I started donating toys from storage. By then, I had a good feel for what my daughters played with and what they did not.

At first it was hard to relinquish some of the toys.

I had memories attached to some of them. But I knew they weren’t serving their purpose sitting in our basement. It was time for these toys to move on and hopefully become beloved by another child.

As the months went on, I started to realize what a surprising challenge it was to keep the number at a “just right” amount. Christmas, birthdays, and visits from grandparents all caused an influx of toys in the home. We continued to work with our five-year-old to move the no-longer-played-with toys to storage when new toys entered her world.

I’ve learned that keeping toys to a minimum in today’s world is an ongoing commitment. My rule of thumb now is that if it takes longer than about five minutes to tidy up toys or if my daughters seem overwhelmed in managing their own toys, then it’s time to declutter again.

I rotate new toys in the home every 2-3 weeks and continue to be amazed at our daughter’s excitement to play with their old toys again.

Minimizing our toys didn’t happen overnight.

It was ongoing project, and the results were wonderful for our family. With fewer toys to take care of, we began to spend more time together as a family, especially outside on “adventures” and reading together.

My stress level in the home also noticeably decreased as the amount of toy clutter has decreased. I found myself more excited to sit on the floor and play with my daughters, and more able to focus on them instead of being distracted by the mess being made.

And I noticed changes in our five-year-old daughter. While she still asked for a toy if taken into Target and tempted, she also told me in stores that we didn’t need to buy anything more. 

In prayer, she became more grateful to God for what we did have. She discovered new interests, like a love for art and spending more time outside. And, she started tidying her room a couple of times per week with little resistance, because, after minimizing toys, it was manageable.

In conclusion

Payne said, “As you decrease the quantity of your child’s toys and clutter, you increase their attention and their capacity for deep play.” By minimizing kids’ toys, by saying yes to simplifying, you are saying no to entitlement and overwhelm. Ultimately, you are giving your children a more meaningful childhood.

Fewer toys in the home has been a win-win for our family. If you’re considering minimizing toys, I encourage you to go for it. Experimenting with less could be a positive experience for your family, too.

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Editor’s note: This is an updated version of a freelance article first published 5-2-19 on Aberle Design Co.com.

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Julia Ubbenga is a freelance journalist. Her teachings on minimalism, simplicity, and intentional living have reached over 1M people worldwide through her blog. Julia also practices what she preaches in her Kansas City home. She resides with her husband, two extremely lively young daughters, three-year-old son, and baby girl. You can also find her on Facebook.

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