25. Contain Your Toys
Toys swarm around kids like mosquitoes at a picnic. You might think you have taken care of the toys, but they keep coming back and multiplying. When children are young, parents can control the toys to some extent with bins, toy boxes, and shelves. But as children get older, the toys change. In some cases, the toys get smaller in size but larger in quantity. Things that we adults wouldn't even consider toys become precious play things to our creative-minded children. And suddenly we don't feel like we have a say in what stays or goes or where it is kept. The Keep Out sign might go up and the bedroom door might be locked. Although their tastes in toys might change, children are sometimes unwilling to part with special childhood favorites. So how do we deal with all the change and abundance?
I remember walking into one little girl's bedroom and letting out an appreciative sigh. It looked like a page out of a Pottery Barn catalog. There was a dark wooden crib, one dresser, a little chair, and a couple of shelves on the wall. Not only was the room beautifully decorated in pink gingham, but I noticed that all the toys, right down to the stuffed animals, matched. They were all pink and white! My first thought was, “Now here's a mom who still has control over her daughter's toys.” My next thought was, “How long is this going to last?” I thought of my own daughter and son, and I remember thinking how different their play styles were. I knew that there was no way I could control all of their toys to be a specific color that matched our décor!
Because we are dealing with one category of things in your child's life at a time, we can easily use my CPR method of organizing to get it all under control. CPR stands for categorize, purge, and rearrange. I always start with a large category and only break it down into smaller components if it cannot be contained with one container or shelf. When you begin organizing, some categories may already be contained in a box, closet, or cabinet. In this case, start the process of organizing by removing all of the items from their storage areas. Other categories may be scattered all over your house. You will need to gather all the items into one spot. Then you can take the large category and break it down into smaller subcategories. As you are sorting into subcategories, you can purge anything that you don't want or need. Or you can wait until you have all the categories in front of you, and then purge whatever you have in excess. Dispose of broken items, and donate or sell unused or gently used items. Looking at your categories in piles on the floor helps you visualize what room these items can fit into, then what containers you might need. Then you can begin to rearrange these items to make a place for everything. Remember this CPR process whenever you organize a category of items.
Before you start physically working with your child to organize her toys, you've got to get in the right frame of mind and set realistic expectations of the outcome. If you can remember back to before your child was born, you were probably planning for the perfect nursery: choosing the crib, the blankets, and colors of the room, maybe even a theme. Life was simple for your infant. All she needed was a crib, changing table, a closet, and maybe a little dresser. I'm sure you never thought of how your child would look or act as an adolescent. No one ever dreams of a child's room covered in crayon drawings, clay creatures, and little scenes with plastic guys all over the windowsills, dressers, and nightstands, but that may be what you have now. As children grow and change, so do their tastes in toys. You can't have everything the same color, and any theme you had is out the window. What you can do is keep the toys contained to certain rooms in the house and teach your children where they can put those toys when it's time to straighten up.
To start this process of getting control of your children's toys, set aside a couple of hours with your child to do a toy clean out project. It's up to you if you want to tackle one child's toys at a time or if you want to lump all your children's toys together and do them all at once. I have been doing an annual toy clean out at my house for about ten years, and we make it an event. It really is a fun and rewarding exercise, so sell it like that to your kids! Maybe promise them a treat at the completion of the project. If you know which room you will keep the toys in, clear some floor space in that room. Then all the toys from around the house should be brought to that one location so you can sort them. You can make this part fun by assigning different rooms to each family member and having them gather up the toys in their rooms. After everyone is finished and all the toys are in the designated room, use my CPR method and sort the toys into categories. Your categories can be whatever you want them to be. Some suggestions are: learning toys, outside toys, games, electronic games, building toys, dress-up clothes, arts and crafts, and musical toys. Your family can decide on the categories together, then make piles. As you sort, throw out anything that is broken. Also purge anything obviously not used by your children. These could be toys they have outgrown. Once all the toys are sorted, look at each category and decide if you really need all that is there. If you find a category is too large and you can part with some of the toys in that category, put the toys in a donation bag.
Once you have all of your categories under control, look at the piles and decide (and sometimes this is the hardest part of organizing) where each category will be kept. Everyone's house is set up differently, and your volume and type of toys will vary. But one thing parents can decide across the board is where the toys will be kept. Should each child keep her own toys in her own bedroom? Or is there a family room, playroom, or basement in your house that can serve as a central location for all toys? If you're sticking to one room, you may decide to put games on a shelf, outside toys in a bin or toy box, and learning toys in a cabinet. If arts and crafts are something that your kids like to do, you'll need to have a table or some flat surface area that is easy to clean. A drop cloth or tablecloth under the table is a good idea for protecting your floor.
If toys will be in more than one room of the house, decide with your child which categories go where. For instance: stuffed animals in the bedroom, sports toys in the garage, and all other toys in the playroom. Keep the toys where the children use them and try to make it logical for your children. After all, the goal is to have the children maintain the system on their own.
Once you have decided where to store the toys, you can work with your child on how they will be stored — in other words, what types of containers you will use. There are many choices. Here are a few with pros and cons listed for each:
Pro: You can customize these to fit your needs. Books, games, and videos can go on the shelves, and bigger toys, small toys in bins, or arts and crafts items can go underneath. These types of containers look like furniture and can be repurposed as the children grow.
Con: They are the most expensive option.
Pro: These are inexpensive but sturdy, and they look nice in a toy room or bedroom. They also make for easy clean up.
Con: Toys get lumped together and are not easily seen by the kids. Toys also get buried at the bottom.
Pro: Sturdy and inexpensive, these types of shelves can hold large, heavy toys. You can also put certain toys on top shelves if you don't want your young children getting into them.
Con: They don't look nice in a family room or bedroom. (I would recommend them for use in the garage, basement, or in a closet.) Small objects will fall through the wire shelves, so you need bins or a shelf cover.
Pro: These are inexpensive, colorful, and easy to move around. You can also use color coding to keep like things together (for example: blocks in the green bin, stuffed animals in the blue bin).
Con: They are always open, so little kids will tend to get into these more. They may not be the prettiest option if you are keeping toys in a family room.
Pro: Costs vary depending on size, but baskets work well with all kinds of rooms and décor.
Con: You have to limit the amount of items or types of items in each basket to keep them organized.
Pro: These are inexpensive storage options, great for stacking up in a closet or sliding into a cabinet on the ground. They make for easy clean up, and if they are clear, the kids can see what's in them.
Con: These are not a pretty option for leaving toys out in a room. If the bins are tucked away, sometimes the kids forget what's in them, so you might have to be the one to pull them out from time to time.
Once you have sorted, purged, and contained your toys from all over the house (quite an accomplishment, by the way!), you and your child need to agree on how you will continue to keep the toys organized. As I mentioned before, deciding is often the hardest part of organizing. The second hardest part is maintaining. As a general rule, I believe there are two ways to maintain any organizational system that you establish in your home:
Whatever you decide is the right or most realistic option for your family, keep it simple and delegate the tasks to the children as soon as you can. Even three-year-olds can put their books back on a shelf or their toys in a bin. Give them one task to do at a time.
Absolute of Organizing Your Family: Keep it simple.
For instance, you can have each child straighten up the toys in her bedroom every morning and the toys in the family room every night before bedtime. Or you could have the children straighten up once a week, maybe on Sunday night or before the house is cleaned. Remember though, that the longer the time between straightening up sessions, the more work there will be. I prefer doing a little each day instead of a big project every two weeks. Also avoid being too controlling and making your child put away every toy as soon as she's finished playing with it. Kids need to leave stuff out, to experiment with things, and to have freedom in their play. If you are a stickler about neatness, the child might rebel and go to the other extreme.
Absolute of Organizing Your Family: If you push too hard, they'll fight back.