Guilt about our kids’ toys

Back when my children were very small I used to feel so guilty about the amount of toys they had been given. I think this must have stemmed from migrating to Australia at five and seeing all my toys donated to my preschool because they couldn’t come with me. That guilt of my children having so many toys was at times tinged with overwhelm, and sadness because there were toys that they had been given that weren’t being played with. So I had a long hard think and came up with an idea.

The idea I came up with was to create a small group of toys along a theme, a bit like in the photo where all the toys have a green theme. I’d put the grouped toys on the coffee table or on a mat on the floor and let them play with just those toys for a few days. I’d leave the toys out so they could continue their play each day until it was time for a change.

And the themes were anything from colours, to cooking, to under the sea, to fire fighters, to farming, to music – whatever I could conjure up! And I saw that toys they hadn’t noticed were being played with, and others were still being ignored. Slowly over time after repeating this many times it helped paint a picture of what toys were engaging them, and what could be re-homed. So in a gentle way I reduced the toy overwhelm for all of us.