A common issue among big families is how to deal with all the STUFF! It starts with this:
And quickly leads to this:
A friend, who also has a big family, asked me:How do you manage toys and things they get for birthdays? The toy wars are driving me crazy, and I put them all away because no one could play nicely.
I said:
By "put them all away," I hope you mean "give them all away". Toys are a dime a dozen. They are so easy to obtain in my opinion that it isn't worth the stress they cause to hang onto them.Not to say that we don't have toys. We have plenty. Although not near as many as several families I know who have half as many kids. But I only keep the toys that are manageable. If they become a burden, I toss 'em with no regrets.
We have a rule that helps a lot: If it isn't put away, I get to do with it whatever I want. That means either giving it to charity or throwing it away.
Speaking of that, for all their gobs of papers: I gave each of the kids a notebook. If I find coloring pages lying around (not in the notebook), I toss em. They know I will do this. Same rule as the toys.
I absolutely love throwing stuff out (for charity or for trash) --fastest way to clean up!
8 comments:
I'm with you. The less items the better. My kids each have a "treasure box" in their closet and a large basket that slides under their bed. When it's full we get rid of things and we always clean it out before Christmas to make room for new things from family.
I couldn't agree more! Since our move I got a few tub for toys. Good ones like little people, dress-up and playmobile. In my extended family I not have a rep for getting rid of toys so my kids now don't get a mass of them for Christmas and Birthday like their cousins do, yipee!
I do the same thing and don't feel bad about it at all. There are some toys that vare their favorites and others that don't make the grade, those get tossed.
I'm with you, Sister! We keep toys in tubs in the garage and rotate them in and out of the house so they don't get bored with them. Misc. toys left on the floor are fair game for tossing!
We don't generally accept presents from others on birthdays. We collect for a service project, usually Voice of the Martyrs. That way the focus is off of the children and on serving the Lord with our treasures! They love it! Preparing a presentation involves the whole family and is a big deal. We do an "all-together-party" like this for all the children every couple of years.
We regularly toss toys here, too. I feel like I'm going to turn my kids into pack rats though. I can just picture them on a psychiatrist's couch when they're older, saying they can't bear to toss anything because their mom used to throw out all their toys, lol.
I can handle the medium and large toys. It is the small toys that don't have a 'home' that drive me crazy! I find transformer parts everywhere. any ideas on how to manage the smaller toys? For now, Lance has a 12x12 box for these type of toys. Once it is full, I go thru it and throw them away.
Kelley,
EXACTLY! The big toys I keep in the boys' room, which is also the playroom since there's so much floor space. Little toys I keep in the under-stairs closet. They don't get to get those out w/o my permission. We have a giant bucket of K'Nex, which is one of our faves. It probably has 1000 pieces. I pull it out at specific times and they play on the living room rug. (Rug Time- I've blogged about this in the past.)
Whenever I find a K'Nex piece under the couch, for instance, I toss it. We have 1000 pieces for heaven's sake, who's gonna miss it? When we don't have enough to build stuff with, then I can buy more.
When the girls get a Polly Pocket or some such doll, the first thing I do is throw away the shoes. Good grief, who are they kidding with those microscopic things??
I get rid of stuff all of the time. Just in the past 2 weeks, I have dropped off 4 large garbage bags at the thrift store--and I do this about every other month! I am not a pack rat--I am the opposite. My kids know that I take stuff or pitch it so they better take care of it!
Laura
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