Q. Our house looks like Santa's workshop with stuffed animals, race cars and art supplies scattered throughout. We try to get our children to keep their items in their own rooms, but it seems like a losing battle. Should we get rid of stuff or is there a best way to organize goods to encourage tidiness?
A. Santa’s workshop has elves to maintain order, mommies typically don’t. We all have found ourselves stepping on a Barbie shoe or broken Pez head. Toys can cost so little and manage to buy us time at the check out counter or relieve guilt after a frantic day. These things become meaningless and clutter our children’s lives and our common living spaces. Here are some tips to purge and reset order in your home.
1. Spend a few days observing your child’s play patterns. Toys that are not touched and have gathered dust around them need to go on a toss or store mental list. Whatever you do, do not ask your children. They will attach to every item like a tick. When children are gone, go through and toss or store unused toys.
2. Create simple portable bins for remaining toys. Take pictures of items or label them if your child can read so they know what to put in the bins. Legos go in a designated bin as do cars, etc. Bins are stored in the children’s room and can be brought out at in an agreed upon amount. Some children want to build a dinosaur kingdom so certainly the dino and block bins can come out at the same time. Heck, some creative carefree households could allow all bins. To see the other step Lonna recommends, read more
