How to Teach Your Child to Shun Mountains of Toys & Embrace Minimalism in Three Easy Steps

  Sophia, soaking up the sun and enjoying summer sunflowers, with no toys in sight.

My husband and I have always believed in not allowing our kids to have too many toys. When our first Christmas came after our daughter was born, we set a limit: one nice, thoughtful gift – no more. And we’ve stuck to that rule four kids and 10 years later.

Our kids have toys, but not many of them. Most we acquired for pennies from garage sales. Every once in a while, I would feel strongly that they just had to have some new, fancy toy and I usually regretted buying it. The box always proved to amuse them more than the actual toy.

When my daughter was about four-years-old and starting to make friends, she began to notice the copious numbers of toys other children collected. I didn’t think much of it other than, “hey, my kids can play with their toys and I won’t have to buy them anymore toys!”

Then one day, driving home after playing with a friend, Sophia turned to me and innocently asked why her friend had so many toys whereas she did not.

This caught me by surprise. Thankfully I said something to her that completely made sense and set her mind at ease.

“Some kids have too many toys. It’s not good to have too many toys.”

“Why not?” she asked.

“Because, when you have too many toys, you start to love your toys more than people.”

She got it. And she even smiled, happy that she didn’t have this horrible sounding “affliction” of Too Many Toys.

Of course there are many more reasons why too much stuff is bad for you. And I’ve spent the past decade teaching my kids those other reasons. Because of this, they are very content, creative, industrious and never jealous of other kids’ toys. (Or if they are, it’s fleeting.) I guess we did something right. (Yay!)

So, why should you care about your child having too many toys?

Here are just a few reasons:

• When you invest more time and money into pursuing “things” over relationships and experiences, you send a message to your kids, “this is what you should value.” Ever seen footage from Wal-Mart on Black Friday where people are knocking each other down to buy a hunk of junk? Don’t let that be your child.
• Toys are expensive. American spent  22.9 billion in 2009 on toys. Yet, the average American has no savings and mountains of debt. Anyone else see the insanity in this?
• Toys limit your child’s creativity. Studies have found that the more elaborate a toy, the less your child needs to use their imagination during play. (Maybe that’s why kids like to play with boxes and ignore the toy that came inside.)
• Too many toys are hard to manage and organize. If it isn’t normal for you to keep mountains of things lying around your bedroom, why teach your kids that it’s normal for them? You want your kids to get used to a clutter-free environment.
• The marketing of toys taps into your child’s social insecurities and tells them an insidious lie: “You will be happier and liked if you get this toy.” You absolutely do not want to reinforce this message in your kids.

How can you raise kids who embrace minimalism and shun mountains of toys?

1. Severely limit their exposure to commercials. Commercials are created to make your children feel as if their lives will not be complete without a certain item. By taking away the marketer’s best tool, you allow your child to think about other things than the latest piece of plastic.

2. Be proactive in teaching them how unimportant stuff is. As much as the world is brainwashing them to love junk, you need to brainwash them to love the things that are important to you. Give yourself permission to tell them flat-out that most kids have too much stuff and it’s bad for them.

3.  Be a good example. Let them see how you decide to buy things for yourself. Openly talk about needs versus wants, your budget and quality. They will absorb your values for better or for worse. Let it be for the better!

Do you have any other ideas? Let me know!