The holidays are a perfect time to teach kids about decluttering and the importance of giving to others, but the lesson doesn’t always go smoothly. Once you pull out all of the old, unused toys in the house, suddenly the kids just can’t let go of that one shape sorter they outgrew eight months ago and the action figure that was under the couch for two years is their favorite one ever.
One mom on TikTok can totally relate, and she has a solution for making the holiday toy purge a drama-free success that has many parents wondering why they never thought of it before.
How to declutter kids’ toys before the holidays
KC Davis, a mom and therapist who goes by the username DomesticBlisters, says her two kids just completed their second annual toy purge to get rid of things the kids no longer play with and help them declutter before Christmas. During this process, she strives to help her kids feel respected and like they have a say in the process. She decided to break down what that entails in a video series for other parents.
Here are the steps Davis took:
1. Get everything out
Yes, everything. Davis says to take every single toy that kids have anywhere in the house and put it in one location.
“This is so we can really get the breadth of what we’re dealing with,” she explains.
2. Let them play
This is where Davis diverges from the toy purging methods many parents use. Ordinarily, the grown-ups might jump straight into asking kids to decide which toys to give or throw away, but Davis says this is a recipe for distraction. Instead, don’t mention anything about giving toys away yet.
“Leave them alone to play for, like, a couple hours,” she advises. “You’re not going to get them to focus on anything while they’re rediscovering the delight of toys they haven’t seen in a while.”
3. Organize, organize, organize
Once the kids have had the chance to play with their old toys, Davis says the next step is “organizing likes with likes.” This means sorting everything by what type of toy it is, like putting all the dolls in one spot and all the books in another.
4. Explain what’s happening
Only once the toys have been thoroughly played with and sorted does Davis start explaining the decluttering process to her kids.
“I tell my kids that, at this rate, there’s not going to be any room for new Christmas toys and that there are kids out there who don’t have as many toys, so during the holidays we can donate some of our toys to them,” she says.
5. Pick some to keep and some to give
Davis begins the toy purge by going through each category with her kids. She’ll pull out all of the stuffed animals, for example, and then pick two arbitrary numbers for how many to keep and give away.
“For my kids, three and five seem to work well” she says in her second video. “I tell them, ‘I want you to pick five stuffed animals that are really special to you. It helps for them to pick things that are really special as opposed to only what they want to give away. Once they’ve picked five, I say, ‘OK, now I want you to pick three that we can give away to someone else.”
Davis says any toys that are broken or unusable are thrown away, not donated. She also that her kids do way better with decluttering when they aren’t forced to throw or give anything away that they aren’t ready to get rid of.
Why it’s important to involve kids in donating
At the end of their toy purge, Davis ended up with four bags of gently used toys and stuffed animals and a full box of books to give away. But the process doesn’t end there.
Once the kids have done all the work, she says she makes it a point to bring them with her to donate their leftover toys, books and stuffed animals as a part of a special trip out. “We make it a special thing to be able to go with Mommy to drop off the toys to a local foster care closet,” she says in a follow-up video.
This ensures the kids aren’t just learning how to declutter, but also getting a valuable lesson about giving back to their communities and doing good for others.
Parents’ other tips for completing the annual toy purge
Davis’s video series was a hit with other parents who are sick of cluttered living rooms and fighting with their kids every time they want to get rid of something. In the hundreds of comments her videos received, many people also shared their own helpful and unique tips for encouraging kids to declutter.
“My friend ‘buys’ toys from her kids for $.25 a piece,” one person offers. “Helps them get rid of toys that are nice but not loved.”
Some parents recommended making a box of toys for Santa Claus or the Elf On The Shelf to take back to the North Pole. If kids have beloved toys that are too old, worn or broken to be used by others, some even suggested up-cycling those toys into something else.
“I’ve seen some moms make ornaments with a few toys,” one person says. “Would be a super cute idea along with this, maybe as a reward for the kids.”
In the end, most people recognized that letting go of unused toys can be really hard for kids, and they’re just grateful that Davis offered a way to declutter that is both useful and respectful of their kids’ feelings.
“My parents purged with out asking me as a child, and now I get overwhelmingly attached to everything,” one person writes. “I love that you don’t go behind their backs.”
