During the peak of my decluttering high, I would mention how great it felt to other moms, and how my kids play better with their toys now, how clean-up is manageable, and all that. I usually heard the same responses: Oh, I would love that too, but it’s hard with the kids around. Or: My child is just so attached to their toys.
I don’t want to brag, but my experience has been so different. Of course, as all the experts suggest, I started with my things first and then moved on to the kitchen. During the whole time, my children were always around. They are 4 and 6 now and were even younger when I started minimalizing. We always had donation piles and boxes in our mudroom, and we still always keep one box in there, even now.
We don’t own a TV and all our digital media consumption happens through a small laptop. The kids have a few shows they are allowed to watch, and on two days a week, they can watch „Mama videos“ with me. Which are YouTube videos from The Minimal Mom and Scandish Home. Both of those women have children and talk about organizing and decluttering. So they had this information slowly seep into their malleable brains.
Decluttering with my kids started very organically and is natural now. During a clean up I used to ask if they still need certain things and if they said no, it went into the donation box. They also told me then which toys they don’t like, and I explained to them that we can sell them at our favorite consignment store, and buy different things for store credit instead, or we can donate them for kids who don’t have a lot of toys.
We would go through their play food set and they picked out the things they don’t like. My children were fearless when it came to breaking up sets, and discarding toys I had spent a pretty penny on and had kept researching for hours and hours online.
Because let’s face it. There are quite some toys we buy because we would have loved to have them ourselves, or because they are made in Germany, or by a great company, or supposed to be valuable for your child’s development, or trigger your personal nostalgia. It takes a few deep breaths and a step back to realize, your kids are right, they don’t play with it, and they probably never will. If they can’t set up the elaborate ball run by themselves, no wonder the cheap IKEA train is more popular.
Another thing, I had to understand the hard way, was that more doesn’t mean better. Whenever my kids loved a toy and played very well with it, I went out and bought more of it. That’s why we ended up with a ginormous amount of Duplo LEGO, which lead to me buying a bigger bin to fit it all, which my kids couldn’t even lift themselves, and they had to completely dump out in order to find their favorite pieces.
We downsized it to a third, and they started to use it again.
There is a lot of information out there, about how much more beneficial fewer toys are for children in terms of creativity, and concentration. It’s not a secret. There is no need for an elaborate play kitchen. An oven with a satisfying clicking button is enough. They can use a shelf cubby for a fridge, and an upside-down stool for a compost bucket.
Today, when my kids clean up their toys at the end of the day (which they hardly do voluntarily and without help – not to give a wrong impression), they might hold up a toy or craft supply, and say „I don’t really like this anymore. I don’t want to keep it.“, then put it into our donation box. Last year my little one even looked around our bedroom and asked: „Mama, is there something here, you or papa don’t need anymore?“