Lyndsey How to teach your children to let go of the things they don’t need or use, and the benefits of doing so.
Are you struggling to get your kids to let go of there things? I want to give advice on how to teach your children to let go of things. Not only to let go of things, but to be happy about it! Wouldn’t that be wonderful?
I have tried these techniques with my oldest throughout the years, and they have all worked wonderfully! Depending on what means the most to your child, different techniques will work differently. We were able to get rid of so many toys recently, and it was my sons own decision to do so!
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Techniques to Teach Your Children to Let Go of Things
1. Involve Them
Make sure your child is involved in the process. You don’t want to tell them they have to do this, or make them get rid of their toys. You can go about it this way, but it will likely end in a lot of fighting and crying. Instead, get them involved in the process and let them help! Let your child know what the intention is. Allow your child to select items they want to get rid of. If you are really good, you can make them believe it’s their idea to get rid of things!
How many times does your kid bring up wanting to get new toys? How many times do they tell you what toy they would like to get? Taking these requests, and turning them into a conversation about getting rid of toys first is a great introduction into involving them with the process. “If you would like to get (insert toy name), how about we make room for it by finding a couple things you don’t use anymore?”.
Once you have determined the method of how your child will get rid of their toys, you can tailor the conversation based on the method used. Check out the amount of toys my son recently decided to part with most recently!
Benefits of Involving Your Child
- It allows your child to feel control over the situation
- It can make your child feel like it was their idea or decision
- Your child will feel that they have more choices for themselves
- They will be able to pick their “special” items to keep
- Your child has a better idea of the items they no longer enjoy
- It will help avoid getting rid of something they would be upset about
- This will assert better habits in the future for decluttering and not hoarding items
2. Help Your Child Donate Items
Help your child to determine a good way to donate the items. Explain how donating items works, and that there are some kids that don’t have a lot of toys, or any toys at all. Help your child to understand that donating toys can make another girl or boy very happy, and give them something to play with.
I have used this technique with my son for multiple years around Christmas time. We find a family in need, and we donate the toys he no longer plays with to that family. He does a great job picking out items to give away. Sometimes I have to talk him down from giving away all of his things!
Ideas for Places to Donate:
- Salvation Army
- Churches
- Love Inc
- Shelters
- Finding a family online (Facebook groups or yard sale sites)
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Benefits of Donating Items
- Donating items can teach your child empathy
- Understanding different situations of different families
- Helping a family in need
- Setting a good example for your children
- Building good traits and habits for your children
- Making your child feel useful and helpful
3. Help Your Child Sell Their Items
What better way to convince your child to willingly get rid of their things than to sell them and get new things? I’m sure we are all well aware that the amount earned from their items will not get them as much in return, but that’s okay! The point is to help them declutter, which means getting less for giving more is the perfect idea!
This is the most recent technique we used for my son, and it worked like a charm! We had a long talk about him being able to make more choices for himself, in relation to my post Defeating Defiance in Younger Kids | How To Maintain Control in the Best Ways. One of the items he had brought to my attention is that he doesn’t get to choose new toys. I took that and ran with it, I let him decide if he wanted to sell his old toys to get new ones, and he was on board!
Create a Game or Chart for Goals
To make this process more fun, you can create a goals chart for them to add the items they want! I have included a free printable PDF below that has open spaces for pictures of the items they want. You can print these pictures out, or you can have your child cut them out of magazines, and just glue them on. What a fun and easy way for you child to keep their goals in mind while deciding what items to sell. You may find they decide to part with more items to help reach their goals!
You could even go as far as getting Punch Cards, and having the total 10 punches being the total amount needed for the items they are trying to earn.
Help your child to choose realistic goals, so they feel they are reachable and achievable items to get. If your kid chooses something very expensive, they may get discouraged and not meet any of their goals.
Benefits of Selling Toys
- Teaches your child about saving money
- Helps them understand costs and economics
- Assist in teaching your child to value their posessions
- Promotes young understandings of entrepreneurship
- Gives them goals and motivation to work towards
- Teaches goal oriented actions for future habits
Conlcusion
Help your child to build great habits and declutter their space by using the techniques above. Not only will this assist in creating great habits, but it will assist in decluttering your home. There are many benefits in teaching your children to let go of things. If done correctly, this process can build into many different teachable moments and lessons learned.
I hope you have found some great information to apply here, and I wish you luck on your endeavors for getting rid of toys and such. If you give this a try, let me know how it goes in the comments! Please feel free to ask any questions or give any further tips, advice or ideas to the community.
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I have always had trouble getting my kids to let go of things, I think they get it from me. I have to say though, when I saw the first photos of your son’s toys, I thought you’d sneaked into my sons bedroom!! We have had a clear out but he had the exact same crane, hot wheels and even Iron Man figure, lol.
That is so funny! Boy’s will be boy’s, right?!? Thank you for checking out my post, I hope it has sparked some ideas to help your kids to let go. 🙂