As I mentioned in my post yesterday, it was two weeks ago that nearly all the toys were banished to the attic. Not only has that consequence worked to get the kids to better remember to put their things away, but it also has had two other pleasantly surprising improvements: they have been enjoying the toys they do have, so much more; and I have enjoyed playing with them, so much more!
Those art easels? They have gotten more use in the past two weeks than they have for this whole past year. Lots of painting and creative chalk drawing have taken place :) The new favorite game is "playing school" with the chalkboard side, with the kids taking turns imitating their teacher, describing how to write letters and numbers as they wrote each one (and even solemnly lecturing me, "Mommy. Keep your eyes on me while I am talking!" I can tell my son hears that a LOT at preschool.)
The flybars? Up until recently, the kids would hop around a few times, get discouraged when they kept falling off, and toss them aside. Now they focused on mastering them. A few days ago they wore themselves out jumping while I counted aloud—not only did they finally get past 5-6 jumps in a row, but they made it all the way to 30.
They've gotten really good on the bikes, which we'll take outside once the snow melts and the ground firms up a bit. We chose the BMX type because we have no hard pavement on our property and no neighborhood street to ride on. Luckily our house is configured so that they can ride a loop around the central staircase wall. They have gone around and around, one "chasing" the other, taking their stuffed animals for rides, etc.
Their concentration on the board games is better. I often play with them, or they will just get out a game and play with each other, 20-30 minutes straight. My daughter had a wonderful time teaching my husband how to play the squirrel game the other night—you could tell she was so proud to be the one doing the instructing. They like to take the mermaid and sea witch tokens out of the mermaid game and just make up imaginative stories with them. The other day my daughter and I built the tallest Jenga tower we've ever accomplished yet.
An interesting byproduct of not having lots of toys, is that I have much more fun playing with the kids when they aren't getting all wound up, dumping out one bin after another, in an escalating competition with each other to get my attention by waving THIS or THAT toy, all while my distraction over the mess builds up—our attention has been on each other more than the "stuff" itself, and the quality of our play time has been exponentially better. Also, the time we used to spend on cleanup is now extra time to play!
I'm not going to get rid of those toys in the attic. I'll honor my promise to let them choose a toy to "get out of jail" fairly soon, as they have indeed gotten better at remembering to put things away. However, for the most part it's going to be on a swap/rotation basis rather than an accumulation basis.
My instinct has always been that "less is more" when it comes to toys, which is why I curtailed them in the first place. The funny thing is that if you do an internet search on "kids and amount of toys" dozens upon dozens of articles will tell you that studies have proven what I just described above; I had never actually searched the subject before, though, so I unwittingly verified it through experience.
So for you parents who reeeeeally want to get a handle on the toys, but think it would be too mean to do: Try it! It just might turn out a whole lot better than you think.
Tomorrow I'll wrap this up by posting what I normally do to keep the toys from taking over the house! Thanks for reading!