I'm about ready to give away ALL their toys!

[GracesMama]

I am so frustrated!!! DDs ages 7 and 4 1/2 give me so much grief when it's time to clean up. Here is what I do already:
- a 5 to 10 minute warning that it's almost time to clean up
- specific directions for each of them, " I need you to put all the play food in the kitchen. I need you to pick up all the crayons off the floor."
- I clean up with them.
- choices "do you want to clean up the dolls first or the Legos?"
- I try to make it fun with songs and challenges "Let's see if we can get all the Legos in the bin by the time I count to 30"
- praise "Wow, you cleaned up that puzzle when you were finished. That was so helpful."
- I feel statements
- Tell them what I will do "I will read you a story, get you a snack, etc. after you clean up the Barbies."

They still whine, complain, and flat out refuse much of the time. I feel so angry and annoyed....

Not sure what to do

[NiteNicole]

Everything gets easier with practice.  I would stop trying to sing and dance and make it fun.  Cleaning up just is.  When it's time to clean up, just say so and keep redirecting them (like you said - ok, all the food in the kitchen, now all the crayons in the box, now all the puzzles, etc) until it's done.  Whine all you like, Mom stays calm and after about fifteen minutes, anything not picked up goes into a bin and the bin goes in a closet or the garage.  Mom stays calm.  So sorry, but this is what happens.  If you can't pick them up then you must have too many things.  We'll get these back out when you can manage this much stuff. 

When we first had room for a "play room," my daughter and her friends and cousins would REALLY drag their feet when it was time to clean up, so I'd send them back in and just keep doing it till it was done.  At this point, they KNOW that either they're picking it up or as a last resort, I will put everything NOT cleaned up into big containers and it will sit in the garage until I feel like they are willing to manage the mess.  I tell them it's time to clean up and it takes about five minutes.  It may not be PERFECT but everything is off the floor and roughly in it's place.
 

[swd12422]

I do what NiteNicole suggested, and it's not really working for me. Mostly b/c I don't have a garage or closet big enough to store it all, and I have MOST of the toys in trash bags/bins in my room. I have nowhere to put them, and no desire to sit and sort out all the puzzle pieces, all the blocks, all the train track stuff, etc.

I have done this before, and let DS do the sorting, one trash bag/bin at a time. He did fine by himself, but within a week, all the toys were back in trash bags. Periodically they ask me where a certain toy is, or if they can have the cars back, and I remind them that they need to have all the toys (that are left for them to play with) put away before bed. Anything NOT put away joins the rest of the bunch in my room. And they have to have everything put away before bedtime every night for a week before they get anything back. It hasn't happened yet...

Right now it's just a big pile of trash in my room that I want to toss. I have no advice, just sympathy.
 

[chel]

I just limit the amount of toys. Both in general and also the amount in each room.

The family room has 2milk crate size baskets of toys.
The playroom (living room) has the most stuff, but it is mostly the bigger toys, ball pit tent, slide, play kitchen.
Basement is just a doll house and books.
Dd room has just a fisher-price barn set.


I don't buy the baby toys. Almost all is from when dd was little and I lived in a 1br apartment. Grandparents don't buy any toys either, so I understand I have a lot of control over what comes in tomy house.

[sassyfirechick]

I like the limiting toys.  From a focus perspective, the more they have to play with, the less they really focus on one things or on being creative.  Then cleanup is overwhelming.  If there are just a few things to chose from at any one time, they are more likely to engage with them rather than become bored.  once a week, you can rotate out those toys for a new batch that you put away in the bin.  When they don't get them for awhile they appreciate them more and it's easier to clean up with less out.  DD is only 10 mos but I never give her multiple toys or objects at once.  She can happily play with a plastic cup for half an hour or more!

[The4OfUs]

AGREE with purging!  Not from a "you're horrible kids" perspective, but from a "this is clearly more than you can manage" perspective. 

Our first purge I made it "stay out or get stored", picked their favorite 5-7 sets, half their stuffed animals, and then hung onto the stored stuff for 3-6 months to see if they missed any of it - there were just a couple things they asked for back, and traded things into the storage bins.  So we then got rid of that stuff, keeping one "sentimental keep forever" bin for each kid, and have been having probably twice yearly purges since then.  The kids are getting really good at it, at realizing what quality/worthwhile toys are that are long term loves vs short term/cheap/fad toys.  

As for the dragging feet/complaining, I think that's just part of the process for many kids...and really, who like the actual cleaning part of cleaning?  I mean I'm sure there are some people, but most of us like the end result and tolerate the effort, and we're adults.  Really, I don't care if they complain about it as long as it gets done - it's on them if it takes 2 hours vs 20 minutes (we've got it to a point where even if every item in their room was out it still shouldn't take more than 20 minutes at an easy pace); they're the ones losing out on playtime...the thing is, I do not have to be an audience for that whining/drama.  So if they want to complain and drag feet, that's cool, they're free to do that on their own with their door shut and/or me in another area of the house...but if they're working and being constructive and not complaining, I'm happy to be in the room (or in and out while I do other stuff) and pitch in a bit - they caught on to that pretty fast.  I can't control their whine, but I can control whether I hear it or not by removing myself from it.  ;)

Which reminds me, I think it might be time for a purge, some of their baskets are overflowing...

[elus0814]

I could have written a lot of your post. My two older kids will not clean up without pitching a fit and even them they seldom pick up more than a few things. It takes literally 2-3 hours to get the living room picked up. We've gotten rid of and packed up most of the toys they used to have. I can't take away much of anything else without the younger three (who, except for the baby do help clean up) would have nothing to play with. To get them to clean up anything I have to stand right there and say 'Ok, now pick up the blue crayon. Now put it in the box. No, it's not time for a snack, please stop asking. Now the red crayon. Pick it up, it's right in front of you. Yes, right there. In front of you, next to where the blue crayon was. Look down. I've already told you it's not snack time yet, we need to clean up the crayons first. You need to come back, we will have a snack when the crayons are cleaned up. I've already asked you to pick up the red crayon. Thank you. Put it in the box next to the blue crayon....'. This is when they were given an eight count box to share. 

Here is what we're down to:

a wooden box with wooden blocks in it

a small bin of large legos (the older kids never play with them)

a toy barn with a handful of animals in it

a dollhouse with only a few pieces of furniture and a couple little dolls

four baby dolls and a doll cradle

a dishpan with some baby toys in it (older kids don't play with them)

a playstand (doesn't need to be cleaned up)

a play kitchen (again, doesn't have to be picked up)

a small basket with some play food and few toy dishes

two wooden trucks and a small wooden car

four stacking toys (seldom played with)

That's it. Even if everything is out it takes me all of five minutes to clean it up. It used to take me a couple hours to clean up puzzles, board games, and little junky plastic toys.

I've actually started adding toys back in the mix. I thought if there were hardly any toys out they wouldn't think it was a big deal to clean them up but it takes just as long. They are more creative now but not in a good way. They don't have enough to play with so they whine to watch tv (our house isn't big enough to just walk away from a whining kid, if I send them to their rooms they make a mess there). They've gotten destructive with things out of boredom. They get into everything. The junk drawer, a locked closet with craft supplies, my nightstand, the storage thing that holds wrapping paper and tape, their dressers/closets with clean clothes in them, bars of soap, shampoo, a basket of clean folded towels and blankets, books, pictures on the wall, whatever they can grab in the kitchen/fridge, the  food in the deep freezer, boxes of keenex, toilet paper, spray bottles of kitchen cleaner.... everything. They'll get ahold of a sheet of paper and I find it in little balls taped to the walls where I have to stand on a chair to scrape if off with a butter knife. Soap is squished into the drain while I feed the baby. Laundry detergent poured on the floor to make a skating rink while I make dinner. It's way more work cleaning up their 'creative' messes than it was picking up more toys.

I hear all the time to just take away toys until they keep things clean but I think that's assuming only one or two kids who can be watched all the time and haven't figured out how to work together to defeat every non keyed lock out there or enough storage space to rotate things out frequently enough that they always seem new. I'm not comfortable putting a keyed lock on everything (nor are we allowed to in military housing) and walking around like a prison warden. I'm interested to see other suggestions.

[Chloe'sMama]

We have smaller kids, but we put all toys up high where an adult needs to get them down. One set of toys out at a time... if they want more, they have to clean up what is out. Still some fussing, but way better.

Books and dress up still end up all over since we cant put those away. Way less stuff out everywhere though. Much better.

We also have got rid of tons of stuff, we are down to what can fit at the top of the closet in the playroom.

[The4OfUs]

Originally Posted by elus0814 

 I'm interested to see other suggestions.

I would suggest getting just a few very LARGE bins, or even laundry baskets, and not caring where everything ends up or if sets are together.  Just make sure everything makes it into *a* bin.  If everything is mixed together when it's out and they're playing with it fine they obviously don't care about whether sets are sorted or not - so forget about putting crayons together in a box, just chuck the crayons into a bin with everything else - they'll find them if they want them.   "Everything has its place" doesn't necessarily mean a separate bin for each toy, organized.   Our living room is still like that - we have one very large square wicker basket with a lid, and every toy, game, book, or art supply that finds its way downstairs gets dumped in there and the lid gets closed, and it looks clean!  They either dump it all back out when they want to play, or pick through - not the way I'd do it if it was my stuff, but it's not my stuff.  Playing "bulldozer" to clean a pile of stuff into a bin tipped on its side is pretty fun to most kids..  

[elus0814]

Originally Posted by The4OfUs 

I would suggest getting just a few very LARGE bins, or even laundry baskets, and not caring where everything ends up or if sets are together.  Just make sure everything makes it into *a* bin.  If everything is mixed together when it's out and they're playing with it fine they obviously don't care about whether sets are sorted or not - so forget about putting crayons together in a box, just chuck the crayons into a bin with everything else - they'll find them if they want them.   "Everything has its place" doesn't necessarily mean a separate bin for each toy, organized.   Our living room is still like that - we have one very large square wicker basket with a lid, and every toy, game, book, or art supply that finds its way downstairs gets dumped in there and the lid gets closed, and it looks clean!  They either dump it all back out when they want to play, or pick through - not the way I'd do it if it was my stuff, but it's not my stuff.  Playing "bulldozer" to clean a pile of stuff into a bin tipped on its side is pretty fun to most kids..  

Interesting suggestion but I can't say I would be comfortable teaching kids that it's ok to mistreat their belongings, I think that's the root of the problem anyway. In our family it's not ok to dump crayons in with toys that will get crayon marks all over them as a result. It's also not ok to just throw everything together in a pile like a bulldozer, that would be unfair to their younger sibling who like things neat and picks things up. I can only name a few things that are separate personal possessions of one child and not shared often so everyone must treat things the way the most careful sibling treats them. How do kids who are shown to push things into one big pile put clothes away into dresser drawers or school papers into the folder they belong in so they can be found later? I think it would be a challenge to tell the kids it'e ok to do that here but not there. Part of this is my parent's tendency to make piles out of things as an 'organization' method. I can see where one big basket might work for some families but I get stressed just thinking about all the problems it would cause here!

[The4OfUs]

Originally Posted by elus0814 

 How do kids who are shown to push things into one big pile put clothes away into dresser drawers or school papers into the folder they belong in so they can be found later? I think it would be a challenge to tell the kids it'e ok to do that here but not there. Part of this is my parent's tendency to make piles out of things as an 'organization' method. I can see where one big basket might work for some families but I get stressed just thinking about all the problems it would cause here!

They do fine now, putting their school papers in their baskets, putting toys away, making their beds, putting clothes away, unloading the dishwasher, sorting and folding laundry, cleaning bathrooms with me, vacuuming.  But they're older now.  I'm not sure how old your kids are - mine are 8 and 6.  And for a time when they were 3-4-ish (into 5 for the older one), the "bulldoze" method for toys worked best for our overall family harmony instead of trying to keep things totally sorted and separate.  My "bulldozer" comment was not meant to imply they were rough with items, or let papers or garbage just get shoved and crumpled in there, that would be pretty gross - papers and garbage are separated out (the 'art supplies" I meant were crayons or colored pencils, or plastic stencils or a spirograph) - so my apologies for not being very clear on that, and perhaps my choice of the word "dumping" was not the best - I sometimes have a flair for the dramatic when I want to make a point.  All I meant was that things would be gathered up, but not sorted by set, the containers tipped on the side, and stuff was gathered into them - they were the ones that coined "bulldozer", actually, not me, because they thought it was fun to pretend that they were bulldozers as they were scooping the stuff in.

I'll be the first to admit that we are not the most fastidious family out there.  But I never allowed the kids to deliberately mistreat objects or be careless with them.  In my mind's eye, crayon marks happen.  Pieces go missing.  Things break.  I chalk these things up to childhood.  As they get older, it happens less...because they are maturing.  And we don't keep the same expectations at 3 when they're 8.    

[Caneel]

Originally Posted by elus0814 

To get them to clean up anything I have to stand right there and say 'Ok, now pick up the blue crayon. Now put it in the box. No, it's not time for a snack, please stop asking. Now the red crayon. Pick it up, it's right in front of you. Yes, right there. In front of you, next to where the blue crayon was. Look down. I've already told you it's not snack time yet, we need to clean up the crayons first. You need to come back, we will have a snack when the crayons are cleaned up. I've already asked you to pick up the red crayon. Thank you. Put it in the box next to the blue crayon....'.

Do you have a window into my world?  The EXACT. SAME. THING. goes on at our house.

It is amazing how young DS was when he learned to turn around concepts like "working together" back on us when it came to cleaning up his toys.  He whines and complains that "we aren't working together" and "if we all pitch in, it will get done quicker" and "friends help friends."  He has a whole basket of phrases to throw at us when he is excepted to take responsibility for the toys he takes out.

In our house, too much stuff is problem #1  I put as much as possible away in closets and the cellar, which brings me to...

Problem #2 is that DS wants to keep EVERYTHING and comes back at me with "but that can be recycled into a new toy, I can pretend it is XYZ."  And the thing is, he actually does repurpose old and broken toys.

Problem #3 is the type of toys.  We have a lot of Playmobil, which he absolutely love and plays with all the time, but holy cow, the amount of parts and accessories is insane.  We have two huge pirate ships that must have 500 pieces of stuff.  Yes, I realize two pirate ships is one to many but how do you stage epic naval battles with only one my husband asked when I tried to restrict entry of ship #2?

We have somewhat of a bin system.  Ideally, like toys would go into the same bins but that only happens when I do a secret purge.  When DS puts his toys away, I dont' care which toy goes into which bin, just as long as everything is off the floor in A bin.  Hopefully as he ages, he will see the delight in good organization.

[chel]

I agree that the "bulldozer" method can work. That is what I'd do with the 2milk crates in my family room.

Life with lots of kids can get messy. Maybe try a backpack with a travel lock to keep things safe, or safe from the kids.

Luckily as kids get older their toys get smaller and less messy. The bathroom with all their lotions and potions is another story.

[rightkindofme]

My kids are two and four. Around a year ago I was trying to clear our house out enough to have a permanent housemate. As life goes that didn't work out. So now we have a play room. I got rid of a lot of stuff for the housemate but things were really cramped and horrid with her stuff here. Now it is fairly manageable. 

My attitude is: until my kids are old enough to take responsibility for owning more stuff they aren't allowed to own more than I can clean up in an hour. I like to go to bed with a clean house because I get up and wander around the house in the middle of the night going to the bathroom. If there is stuff on the floor I trip and get hurt and then I feel very angry and hateful. (Given that they beg me to sleep in their room and I do it about half-time that *does* include their room.) I'm not willing to live like that. So I spend an hour a day cleaning. If I can't keep my house picked up in seven hours of work in a week then we have a freakin problem. I get rid of things. 

I figure I have until they are five or six to be totalitarian about this topic. By then I will be able to explain to them that if they want more than I can pick up then they need to be responsible for it. I do not have an ever expanding amount of ability to take care of physical objects. If I have to touch every @#%$%^ toy you own every single #$$^$# day then you can't have very many. Because I'm worn out. Sorry.

I wish I didn't say sorry.

But yeah. I did give away most of their toys. I don't feel actually sorry. I feel societally imposed guilt because I "should" give them more things to prove I love them--right?

[elus0814]

Originally Posted by Caneel 

Do you have a window into my world?  The EXACT. SAME. THING. goes on at our house.

It is amazing how young DS was when he learned to turn around concepts like "working together" back on us when it came to cleaning up his toys.  He whines and complains that "we aren't working together" and "if we all pitch in, it will get done quicker" and "friends help friends."  He has a whole basket of phrases to throw at us when he is excepted to take responsibility for the toys he takes out.

In our house, too much stuff is problem #1  I put as much as possible away in closets and the cellar, which brings me to...

Problem #2 is that DS wants to keep EVERYTHING and comes back at me with "but that can be recycled into a new toy, I can pretend it is XYZ."  And the thing is, he actually does repurpose old and broken toys.

Problem #3 is the type of toys.  We have a lot of Playmobil, which he absolutely love and plays with all the time, but holy cow, the amount of parts and accessories is insane.  We have two huge pirate ships that must have 500 pieces of stuff.  Yes, I realize two pirate ships is one to many but how do you stage epic naval battles with only one my husband asked when I tried to restrict entry of ship #2?

We have somewhat of a bin system.  Ideally, like toys would go into the same bins but that only happens when I do a secret purge.  When DS puts his toys away, I dont' care which toy goes into which bin, just as long as everything is off the floor in A bin.  Hopefully as he ages, he will see the delight in good organization.

This is hilarious. My kids do the same thing. They're constantly telling me they're not gong to be my maid when I ask them to do something really basic like take my glass into the kitchen in their empty hand while they take their glass in. It's all because one time, two years ago, I told them I wasn't going to be their maid when I was at the end of my rope with the mess. 

We have the same 'more than one item' problem. They're packed up now but the kids couldn't grasp why I didn't think we needed to keep two of the horse playmobile sets. They're like 'it's not a farm when there's only one pile of plastic horse manure'. I did manage to cram all the pieces into one case so it's taking up the same amount of room in the closet. 

[sassyfirechick]

I've been pretty strict with family and friends about what is allowed in the house.  DD's birthday is coming up and I plan to enforce the rules the - she's only going to be one, she does NOT need a million toys, and I will return or donate them.  I'd rather people contirbute to college savings or something usefull than crappy plastic toys.  We're an outdoorsy family, I spent my entire childhood outside, climbing trees and riding bikes.  I had books and I had legos.  I didn't ask for anything else because I used my imaginantion.  Just because toys say they are "educational" is not a reason to buy them, pretty sure I got by just fine without.  And kids who are bored with even 5-7 toys clearly have never built a fort wtih blankets or 'set sail' on an area rug or went camping under the dining room table!  Epic battles do not require more toys - they require more imagination.

[elus0814]

Originally Posted by sassyfirechick 

I've been pretty strict with family and friends about what is allowed in the house.  DD's birthday is coming up and I plan to enforce the rules the - she's only going to be one, she does NOT need a million toys, and I will return or donate them.  I'd rather people contirbute to college savings or something usefull than crappy plastic toys.  We're an outdoorsy family, I spent my entire childhood outside, climbing trees and riding bikes.  I had books and I had legos.  I didn't ask for anything else because I used my imaginantion.  Just because toys say they are "educational" is not a reason to buy them, pretty sure I got by just fine without.  And kids who are bored with even 5-7 toys clearly have never built a fort wtih blankets or 'set sail' on an area rug or went camping under the dining room table!  Epic battles do not require more toys - they require more imagination.

I'm with you on the put money into the college fund instead of buying junky plastic toys front but saying that kids who have more than books and legos don't spend enough time outside or have an imagination is harsh. We like to spend time outside but it's not always (or even often) possible. What about when it's 108 outside and your kids are red faced and dehydrated? When it's 20 degrees and the baby is getting too cold after 10 minutes? When your ear infection prone child just started antibiotics and can't hear well enough when you yell for them to get out of the street? When you open the garage to get out bikes and trikes only to find lots of black widow spiders? When you or one of the kids is sick? The list goes on but these are just a few things that parents, especially those with more than one child, have to deal with. Sometimes you just can't be outside for long or at all. Other times you're going on two hours of sleep and your husband has been away for ten months and you just plain want to cry thinking about taking all the kids out or checking tricycles for spiders or cleaning up yet another imagination mess - that's where more than 5-7 toys comes in.

[sassyfirechick]

Originally Posted by elus0814 

They don't have enough to play with so they whine to watch tv (our house isn't big enough to just walk away from a whining kid, if I send them to their rooms they make a mess there). They've gotten destructive with things out of boredom. They get into everything. The junk drawer, a locked closet with craft supplies, my nightstand, the storage thing that holds wrapping paper and tape, their dressers/closets with clean clothes in them, bars of soap, shampoo, a basket of clean folded towels and blankets, books, pictures on the wall, whatever they can grab in the kitchen/fridge, the  food in the deep freezer, boxes of keenex, toilet paper, spray bottles of kitchen cleaner.... everything. They'll get ahold of a sheet of paper and I find it in little balls taped to the walls where I have to stand on a chair to scrape if off with a butter knife. Soap is squished into the drain while I feed the baby. Laundry detergent poured on the floor to make a skating rink while I make dinner. It's way more work cleaning up their 'creative' messes than it was picking up more toys.

I hear all the time to just take away toys until they keep things clean but I think that's assuming only one or two kids who can be watched all the time and haven't figured out how to work together to defeat every non keyed lock out there or enough storage space to rotate things out frequently enough that they always seem new. I'm not comfortable putting a keyed lock on everything (nor are we allowed to in military housing) and walking around like a prison warden. I'm interested to see other suggestions.

................................................

I'm with you on the put money into the college fund instead of buying junky plastic toys front but saying that kids who have more than books and legos don't spend enough time outside or have an imagination is harsh. We like to spend time outside but it's not always (or even often) possible. What about when it's 108 outside and your kids are red faced and dehydrated? When it's 20 degrees and the baby is getting too cold after 10 minutes? When your ear infection prone child just started antibiotics and can't hear well enough when you yell for them to get out of the street? When you open the garage to get out bikes and trikes only to find lots of black widow spiders? When you or one of the kids is sick? The list goes on but these are just a few things that parents, especially those with more than one child, have to deal with. Sometimes you just can't be outside for long or at all. Other times you're going on two hours of sleep and your husband has been away for ten months and you just plain want to cry thinking about taking all the kids out or checking tricycles for spiders or cleaning up yet another imagination mess - that's where more than 5-7 toys comes in.

I'm sorry but you wanted suggestions, you got them.  You are assuming that every family of multiples can't control their kids becuase they will plot against the parents?  I have severral friends in the 4+ children range, and not a single one of them has trouble keeping every one in line, and no, not all of them have 2 parents.  You say that your kids will go to lengths of destroying your house if you don't give them toys to play with and then clean up after them because they won't do it themselves and then criticize everyone else on their suggestions - I don't think you're in a position to criticize.  Everyone here is giving opinions on what works for them.  Sure I only have one kid at the moment.  I plan to have more.  I don't foresee any of these issues in my future.  You've come up with at least 20 "here's why I can't" scenarios, so apparently short of someone coming in and doing it for you it seems like no one will have anything that will work for you to try, IMHO.

[swd12422]

But see, I think it depends on the kid. I'm really starting to see that. DS is pretty mellow, what I consider a normal, calm, polite kid. But he doesn't play with toys the way they're  meant to be played with. At all. Even at 4, everything is still a hammer, drumstick, projectile or launching agent for said projectile. He gets his jollies by throwing puzzle pieces under/behind furniture so they can't be completed. By anyone. He throws whatever he can get ahold of at the ceiling fan to see it fly across the house. And he's only ONE child. So I can keep an eye on him. But there is no redirecting him, he just finds something else to throw, launch, and destroy. I can't imagine having 3 or 4 unredirectable kids to care for full time and still keep things in relative order.

Then I see my friends' kids playing and think, "No wonder it's so easy for her even though she has 3 kids. They PLAY with their toys. They don't use them for other purposes. They play, and then they put them away." And then there's my BFF, also only one child in the house, and everything is destroyed. Some days her play room looks like an episode of "Hoarders." It just all looks like a big pile of junk. Which is what mine looks like, but not as bad, probably just b/c of the difference in volume.

So while I get what others are saying and like the suggestions, I can see how some of them won't work for me even with just one kid, nevermind a tired mama of a baby plus several and a husband who is away for long stretches of time.
 

[azzeps]

Originally Posted by swd12422 
 And then there's my BFF, also only one child in the house, and everything is destroyed. Some days her play room looks like an episode of "Hoarders." It just all looks like a big pile of junk. Which is what mine looks like, but not as bad, probably just b/c of the difference in volume.

Am I your BFF?? Do we know each other? Oh, wait, I have two kids... My family room looks like Hoarders.  It totally does.  Sigh.  Someday I will have the time to whip it into shape.  Not today!  Good night!!