Episode Transcript
BONNIE: Hello
and welcome. I am Bonnie,
LILY: and I am Lily,
and this is Little Home Organised the podcast dedicated to helping you
declutter, get organised and reclaim time for the things you love.
MUSIC
BONNIE: Hello
and welcome, this week we are talking about toy jail. Rather than a place where
toys go when they are naughty, toy jail is just one of several strategies you
can use to reduce the toy clutter in your home and teach your children that all-important
life skill, responsibility.
LILY: A big
word but a powerful one and if you are someone who is in a position at the
moment where you really want to get on top of your clutter, specifically in the
toy room, then the essentials guide, our online course may just be the answer
you have been searching for, it is
detailed for each room of the house including the toy room so you know exactly
what products to use and what strategies are going to help you keep that space
looking clutter free. So if you are
interested Bonnie where should they go?
BONNIE: So head
over to littlehomeorganised.com.au/courses and you will be able to find the
Essentials Guide there and the greatest thing is it is designed for the time
poor parent in mind and you have lifetime access.
MUSIC
LILY: Toys,
toys, toys my goodness I didn’t know how much I would relate to the episode we
are about to do until I had a baby of my own and it is really I think it is
really true that kids have so many toys right now and I had people, we were
really blessed with a lot of hand me downs for you and you know I love a trip
to the op shop
BONNIE: Sorry
about that
LILY: I love a
trip to the op shop but one of the things that I noticed is that when it came
to my son’s first birthday a month or so ago, people would ask me what do you
want for him, what does he need
BONNIE: Oh
that’s good
LILY: And,
which was awesome, love friends like that who don’t want to just um buy fillers
I suppose. I couldn’t think of anything
BONNIE: This is
the thing
LILY: I was
like, he has so many hand me down clothes, he has some many hand me down toys,
what does he even need, and I was like this kid doesn’t need anything
BONNIE: Yeah
and that’s the thing with first birthday parties
LILY: He’s one
BONNIE: It is
not, you are not necessarily having a party because you want them to get more
toys to be able to play with, their happy with an empty tissue box really, like
they are just, it is the easiest age to please I find but you want to have a
celebration to celebrate the fact that you got through the first year of
parenting
LILY: Oh is
that what it is
BONNIE: Oh my
goodness
LILY: I probably
wouldn’t have planned it a children’s park then, I would have had a spa
BONNIE: Yeah or
gone to the pub and had some drinks so that you could actually relax and be kid
free but yeah it is a celebration of getting through the first year but you are
right, your one year old doesn’t actually need anything usually, and so
sometimes you do end up getting all these gifts of toys and like some of them
are great and some of them you can grow into and you can use them for future
kids and all of that sort of thing, but the reality is we have all got too many
toys.
LILY: We do,
big kids and little kids, us big kids we have lots of extra stuff that we don’t
necessarily use but
BONNIE: That
are more expensive
LILY: Yeah they
are more expensive toys and I just totally agree that when I see children and,
in their homes with the amount of toys that they have I just feel like we are
giving so many that it is becoming overwhelming and I am in a few Facebook
groups for everything because there is a Facebook group for everything just
like ours, decluttering and organising, get amongst it, but you know I am in a
few and some of them are open ended toy groups that I am in because I was just
curious about people who like to use wooden toys that are suppose to inspire
imaginative play but a lot of the mums in those groups talk about how if you
have too many toys out it is just overwhelming for your kids and they get really
board.
BONNIE: Yeah
they really do, it is like too much choice is actually too much
LILY: It is
visual stimulation
BONNIE: It is
too much for kids and so that is why as parents when your kids say to you, oh I
am board get rid of their toys, get rid of as many toys as you can because
their actually too overstimulated so it means
LILY: English
teacher in you coming out
BONNIE: That
means that they can’t actually think creatively because they are visually,
there is too much going on and they can’t actually stop and sift through and
make decisions, so that is why things like toy rotations are so good because it
helps actually remove some of that visual overwhelm.
LILY: And if
you are someone who when you think of toys in your house right now if you have
like a specified playroom or toy area or maybe it is your child’s bedroom when
you open that door and you have left them to their own devices for half an hour
does it suddenly look like a bomb has gone off, is there absolute chaos
everywhere, potentially the number of toys isn’t even necessarily the issue for
you and potentially it is more of a conversation around helping our children
learn their responsibilities and to pick up after themselves as they go and so
basically today’s episode is going to be covering all of that, talking about
some of the things that we have learnt both professionally and personally that
are helping us keep on top of our children’s toys.
BONNIE: And I
love this idea of talking about the responsibility side of things because
someone said to me recently oh it just about naughty toys going to jail and the
house being cleaner, and I said actually no, the whole purpose of this is to
teach your kids how to be responsible because when our kids don’t have that
motivation to be responsible they loose their school hat really easily, they
loose their water bottle really easily, they don’t take care of things, they
think that things are replaceable, like I have had the kids say to us at times
when a toy has broken, oh we can just go an buy another one, actually no I am
sorry that is not how life works, if you crash your car and you don’t have
insurance on it, you can’t just go and buy another one, if you have haven’t
taken care of your sunglasses and someone has stepped on them and scratched
them, yeah maybe you can afford to go and replace them but we can’t necessarily
do that with everything, so it is really important to teach our kids that
element of looking behind us, packing up and that responsibility of not leaving
things behind.
LILY: So there
was an interesting article that I read the other day and it was about this
Professor whose name was oh Professor I think it was Alvin Rosengreen and Thorn
and something, anyhoo
BONNIE: what a
cool name
LILY: And I
will find it and link in the show notes. He was reflecting upon a conversation
he had with a counsellor, a school counsellor they went into a classroom and they
sat down with children and this counsellor said oh blah blah blah blah we are
going to practice using our imaginations today or what have you, and all these
little students were like what is imagination? What does that mean? And she was
like Oh well imagination to me when I was young would mean I would dress up as
wonder woman and I would put on a cape and boots and I pretend I could fly and
I would race around and I would play pretend and they were all like we don’t
understand it, we don’t get it, we haven’t done that and she was shocked, and
she was mortified that these children had like lost the ability to imagine and
as I was reading through this article by this Professor it was just interesting
some of the observations he had noted about how we have changed how we have
toys around children
BONNIE: Was it
a she or a he because you have said both?
LILY: Or she
was the counsellor, and he was the Professor
BONNIE: Oh
right, oh okay
LILY: Yeah
sorry
BONNIE: We are
on the same page now
LILY: And one
of the things that he observed is that children have too many toys, the
quantity of toys and if you were to open your child’s bedroom right now and
look in there could you even count in 5 minutes how many toys they have and I
think for many families absolutely not, there are so many toys in our kids
bedrooms
BONNIE: And the
reality is especially once your kids are at school, there is not actually all
that much time for them to be playing with indoor toys which tends to be the
big clutter problem for us right, if our kids are at school, it is 5 days a
week, maybe on weekends we are actually going out to parks, to birthday
parties, to sporting events, or we are playing outdoors if it is a nice
summer’s day, maybe we are playing in a pool or we are getting wet, we are
riding scooters and skateboards and playing with balls and things like that,
how much time do your kids actually spend indoors playing quietly with those
toys. Once they get to school it really
reduces and so it is really interesting to go to these homes and see these huge
big playrooms that the kids are probably only in there an hour, 2 maybe 3 a
week
LILY: Not much
at all and then when you think about the amount of real estate that is being
taken up,
BONNIE: Oh yeah
and think about if you didn’t need that room at all and you could just have
like a small shelf of toys in their bedroom, you could buy a smaller house, you
could reduce your mortgage, you could go on more family holidays and more
outings and vacations
LILY: The
options are endless
BONNIE: because
you have reduced just the toys, this is where decluttering can take us, it is
amazing, it is like opening up all these opportunities and possibilities.
LILY: When we
talk about sentimental clutter and how if we keep everything, then if we have everything
then nothing is special, it think you can relate that to a lot of other things
and it is like if my child has 100 toys, none of them are really special but if
my child has a handful of toys then they maybe a lot more special to that
child.
BONNIE: I think
of this in particular, so in Australia one of our supermarket chains does these
ooshies, and the kids loved collecting them and you can get glow in the dark
ones, ones that change with temperature, so they stick them in the fridge and
they change and things like that, so we have got 2 collections worth of ooshies
at home and I stopped letting the kids use them because all they would do is like throw them at each
other
LILY: Just a
uni tasker toy
BONNIE: And
they would just end up everywhere but the thing was when we had a smaller amount
so say we only had like maybe 8-10 my older two really loved them because what
they would do when our nieces would come over for family dinner is they would
play hide and seek with them, and they would go and hide them around the house
and then the other 2 would have to go and find them, but once the collection go
so big, they kind of stopped caring about them anymore and it is really funny
because the other day I was washing my daughters school uniform and I found a
couple of things in her pocket and she was like
I am really sorry mum, I brought them home from Nan’s house, because we
have got a bit of don’t bring toys from Nans house because they would get lost
and I don’t have to worry about them going back and vice versa and I was like
oh its fine don’t worry about it, um but one of them was a ooshie, and it was
the same ooshie that we have got in our collection of ooshies but because it
was on its own
LILY: It was
extra special
BONNIE: It was
extra special and I thought yeah that is really interesting isn’t it, the more
you have got the less special the individual seems to be.
LILY: So, if
there is one thing you can do for your toy situation right now it would be to
look at the quantity
BONNIE: Yes
100%
LILY: And
that’s what I think is the big message with everything is declutter, declutter,
declutter but really look at the quantity of toys that your children have and
think about how much they are actually interacting with those toys and are they
so over stimulated by the quantity that is time to consider doing a toy
rotation. My example for this would be
that with my son at the moment, I don’t know if it is his age, I am a first
time mum and I am just getting to know this age he is one and a bit and he just
wants to wonder around and touch and pull and explore on things but he wants to
do it with everything that is not a toy, so you know it is pretty classic, he
keeps pulling tissues out of the tissue box which is fine because like I
wrapped him like a tissue box and gave it to him and he was like, I played with
this a bit I am now uninterested but then of course when I have like got my
back turned in the kitchen because I have
BONNIE: He’s
like
LILY: Yeah he
is pulling out tissues, it is like I have got have like a rotating head on my
neck because you know every 10 seconds I am turning around or popping my head
around the corner being like hey come back over here please, please stay alive,
um but one of the things I am noticing is that I think he is getting maybe I
don’t know if it is overwhelmed by the amount of stuff in the draws, because
they all concealed in our trofast ikea system that we have got set up, you can
see a picture of it on our social media, so I don’t know if he is getting
overwhelmed or and I need to be investigating in the toy rotation idea already
with him,
BONNIE: Mmm I
think it is definitely worthwhile because when they have got only one thing to
play with they actually can be more creative and imaginative with it, case in
point, yesterday I took my 2 year old up the coast because we are moving there
in a few months and I was looking at day care centres and looking at Op shops
and stuff in the area making new connections and things for work and he said oh
can I take a car in the car and I said yeah sure, so he took this little
matchbox car in the car and that kept him amused the drive up, when we would go
around shops or in the day care centres he would sometimes take it into, we
went to the beach for a quick swim because hey why not, he took that down to
the beach and was playing with that on the beach, you know on the car ride home
it was just one toy and that is all he had all day and he was really kept
amused by it, like it just did the trick all day. Whereas if you take a whole bag of toys on a
road trip which I have done before with all of my kids they just end up all
over the floor, they are not interested with them, it is like oh what’s next,
oh what’s next.
LILY: So your
kids came over to my house for my birthday dinner a couple of days ago and I
was really excited for them to see our toys because they haven’t been to our
house, they haven’t played with our toys and there was all these toys that I
wanted them to play and interact with and they agreed, they wanted to play and
interact with every toy but I watched them and it was like one this sense of
what am I about to open and see and oh what what
BONNIE: New and
exciting
LILY: cool
thing and what is new and but then there was also this competitive drive to
like to get in there and spot it before the sibling so they could play with it
first and so it was like quick I have got to play with that, quick what’s new,
what’s exciting and it is just funny that like the way that kids do that. So if you have got a lot of stuff of course
declutter it but if you are trying to keep things interesting for your kids
consider a toy rotation, so the great thing you can do is just take a bunch of
the toys out, be it 50% some people do like 2/3’s they take most of the toys
away, they put them out of sight and then they pick a time frame for which they
want to rotate the toys out to keep it interesting, maybe you do it every week,
maybe you do it every 2 weeks
BONNIE: Maybe
it is once a month, whatever it is you don’t have to necessarily to all of your
toys but you might have sets of things, so say you have got a little people’s
set and then you have got a Duplo set and then you have got a mega block set,
if you think oh I can’t actually let these go and the kids still love them,
rotate those sets every week or a couple of weeks because then the kids don’t
see them for a little while and when they come back out it is kind of like they
are new again and you can tell a bit more easily then whether they are toys
that you want to keep long term, because I haven’t seen them for a few weeks
and they come out and they loose interest really quickly you know that they
have moved on passed that toy and that was the interesting thing about going to
your house the other night with the kids, a lot of those toys that are at your
house now use to be a our house and so they suddenly
LILY: And they
are suddenly more exciting again
BONNIE: Yeah,
they were suddenly more exciting they were like oh look at this, and I am
watching the 2-year-old play with this ball whacker thing that the eldest one
got given when we were born and thinking this is so cool and I am thinking yeah
that was at our house like 6-8 months ago and you did not play with it at all
LILY: You
ignored it all
BONNIE: Yeah so
it is just funny a toy rotation is a great way to keep it fresh.
LILY: So Bon
can talk about 5 minute toys.
BONNIE: Oh my
goodness, 5 minute toys are the bane of my life.
LILY: Why don’t
we have a clutter confession and then come back
BONNIE: Yes
lets come back to that one.
CLUTTER
CONFESSIONS;
WACKY
CONFESSIONS ANONYMOUS CALLER 1: I have a clutter confession, I have been
keeping in a drawstring bag 30xm x 30cm a collection of electronic equipment,
in the bag are old phones, old cameras, old smart watches and a stack of
charging cable, I am keep a small collection of things just in case I may need
them, truth is I never will and I need to sort though what I should actually
keep and what needs to be passed on or thrown away. I will do it one day.
BONNIE: I love
how when people ring and give us their clutter confession that by the end of it
they are like I know I should get rid of it,
LILY: I know,
we all know don’t we.
BONNIE: Yeah
maybe that’s what makes it a clutter confession is something that we know that
we should be getting rid of but we have just held onto for a while.
LILY: there are
so many pending jobs in life, just sitting in the background just pending,
waiting to be done,
BONNIE:
Electronics are one of those really tricky ones as well because
LILY: They are
BONNIE: You
want to get data off them you don’t want to lose photos, you don’t want to lose
text messages sometimes
LILY: It is a
time commitment to go through that stuff involves loading it onto something and
going through it
BONNIE: And do
you have the technology to actually access that data anymore, which most of us
don’t because it just evolves so quickly
LILY: So
quickly, I just found my underwater camera the other day
BONNIE: Oh
LILY: So, it is
just a normal camera in an underwater case, and I was like oh there is photos
on here I think and then to find out if there are photos worth printing on
there you have to actually pay to go get them printed
BONNIE: Yeah
LILY: Which
everyone use to have to do but yeah it is like the reason that camera was still
sitting there is it was a choice to not have to address that problem. It is a pending responsibility.
BONNIE: It is
and it is important to you so you don’t want to get rid of the item but it is
not such a priority that you actually go and do something about it.
LILY: Yeah and
the other thing with tech is of course it could come in handy, it seems wasteful
with how quickly we go through technology to just like ditch it,
BONNIE: Yeah
LILY: And it
does cost a bit of coin
BONNIE: It is
obviously not something that should go into land fill either it should be
something that goes to like an e-waste facility to get recycled.
LILY: And good
news for your anonymous caller because there is plenty of e-waste opportunities
to dispose of those electronics responsibly, when that day does come.
BONNIE: Mmm
LILY: So, if
you a have a clutter confession feel free to send it head to Little Home
Organised and send us a message.
MUSIC
BONNIE: Okay so
we are talking about the 5-minute toys, the absolute bane of my life. You might know these toys as McDonalds toys
or the cheap Kind of surprise toys.
LILY: Ah ha
okay
BONNIE: But
there are also other toys that basically only keep your child interested for 5
minutes or less, so it could be something like a tambourine in our house, some
kids they might have a tambourine and they love it and they play it death for
hours and hours but in our house a tambourine is a 5 minute toy, 2 minute toy
really bang it for a little while, then we get sick of it and it just goes on
the floor and the 5 minute toys frustrate me because you don’t play with them
for more than 5 minutes and then they just end up on the floor, taking up
space, creating trip hazards, creating clutter and they don’t usually stimulate
imaginative play so like a tambourine is something that if you were a parent
that wanted to do like a structured learning experience with them and sit down
and do a song together and tap it out, great do that but when you have got
something like the McDonalds toy figurines and stuff kids don’t usually use
those and play dolly’s with them and play superheros with them not in my experience
anyway or in any of the client homes that I have been in. They just don’t hold the attention
LILY: There are
other things they will play with over them
BONNIE: Hours
and hours
LILY: There is
that quick wonder of opening the Kinda surprise or opening up the happy meal
putting the toy together, a couple of seconds of play, a couple of minutes of
play and then you know maybe you have a kid who plays with it for a few hours
and then the next day it is no longer interesting.
BONNIE: And
that is the thing a 5-minute toy would be different for every household in some
ways, so you need to stop and think what are the toys that my kids pick up and
then they drop really quickly. Like a kaleidoscope in our house
LILY: Random
BONNIE: It is
such a 5 minutes toy and it just hangs around and it is like oh cool, twist,
twist, twist drop,
LILY: Yeah
BONNIE: Like
that’s how fast it is and it is like why do we have this thing
LILY: Because
it is cool and it is interesting and it is a new learning experience, it is sensory,
like there are all these perks to these toys but if your home is cluttered, if
your toy room is absolutely over flowing then it is time to have a look at
those 5 minute things and say okay well which ones of these do we want to keep,
you know for education, for learning, for experiences, for toy rotations, for
hand me downs, and which ones do we want to actually say goodbye to so that we
can reclaim this space. That’s the other
thing I notice about you know some toy rooms is there are so many toys in there
and there is so much clutter that easily spills out that it is really hard to
manage the mess, there could be this capacity for all this space to play but
because there is so much stuff the playroom is actually the working room, the
moving about room is actually really limiting
BONNIE: Yeah it
is and that is what is really frustrating for kids is because when they get
something new out, like a building block set they want to be able to spread it
out and build things but if they are trying to shove stuff out of the way they
are just not interested and it is so interesting anytime we declutter a toy
room or a lounge room or a kids bedroom that has had toys in it, the kids will
come in there and they will either roll all over the floor or they will spin and
spin and spin, they just love open space
LILY: It is
funny you mention that because I was looking at a testimonial for your
professional organisation business Little Miss Organised the other day and it
was of this boy and you were like having a bit of chat to him about how he felt
about his bedroom, but he spun around on the floor and I was like classic it is
like oh there is space for me to move, create and play in here
BONNIE: Yeah
and that’s it, and you know yesterday when I took the 2 year old up to visit
our new house that we are moving into which is totally empty um he went into
the lounge room which is you standard 5 metre x I don’t know 4 metre lounge
room and what did he do he rolled all over the floor
LILY: The
simple joys, so Bonnie when you think of working with clients and them having
cluttered toy rooms that they are trying to get on top of what do you see as
being some of the common issues
BONNIE: So
obviously too much is the most important thing, often we have all got too many
toys, to much stuff in general and once we declutter that it does make it a lot
easier but another thing is we really just need to teach our kids that
important life skill of packing up and putting away before we move onto the
next thing and they do that at kindy, they do that at school it is something
that when you go to a job, your boss wants you to do it, your boss doesn’t want
you to have a desk you know completely cluttered and full of stuff so we need
to teach it right from 1, 2 year olds that oh that we are finished with this
set now, we are going to pack it up, come on help me pop it in the box and then
we are going to move onto the next thing, and that is where a toy rotation can
come in handy because you can pack that box up put it away and then bring something
else out and often I think when we allow kids free reign of the entire
playroom, that’s where we do end up with a really big mess at the end of day
and kids that are too tired and hungry to clean it up and parents that are worn
out and we don’t want to clean it up, so of course the cycle just continues day
after day and when we have got way too many toys in there it is so over
whelming for us even to think about cleaning it up so decluttering is
definitely important but also teaching that very important skill of packing
away.
LILY: Yeah and
as a parent you are so tired aren’t you and sometimes you just don’t want to be
a parent and I don’t mean that in the sense that you don’t want to have the
child but a pick part of being a parent is you are a teacher and so that means
that you repeat yourself and you are constantly imprinting lessons upon your
kids and that is no we are going to finish packing this up before we move onto
the next thing, yep lets come on, come in here with me and we will do it together,
yep oh we have still got a few more things we need to pack up, I know you are
excited to play with that but you see all this Lego over here we still need to
put that away and you maybe repeating mantras like that multiple times a day,
every day for the nearly 10 years
BONNIE: Nobody
ever told me how much teaching I would have to do when I was no longer a
teacher,
LILY: That’s
it,
BONNIE: Its
crazy
LILY: You have
signed onto be a teacher, that’s a big part of your role is to educate your
child on how to navigate the world and so when it come to teaching them these
responsibilities it starts from a very young age, you know you can teach them
to when you pull the washing in off the line, say okay you can pick out, I have
picked out your clothes can you help me you know maybe fold your socks
together, or fold your clothes, or I have folded your clothes you know
depending on the age, you can go put them in your draws and sure they will take
longer and they may not do it right but those little things we have got to
teach them from a really young age and toys are no different like we need to
learn that when we create a mess we need to address that mess and put things
away, they had their start, we had the play, we have the finish, close it all
up, move onto the next thing because otherwise you are going to walk into that
toy room and it is going to look like a bomb has gone off and you are busy, you
are important, you are tired too, like but if you take the time to imprint
those messages on your kids so they do know that they need to clean up after
themselves
BONNIE: It will
get easier down the track
LILY: It will
get easier, it is a lot of hard work in the meantime but it will prevent those
situations where you walking in and you think oh my goodness Mr 2 has been let
loose in the sewing room and pulled
BONNIE: Everything’s
out
LILY: Pulled
all of grandmas sewing stuff out.
BONNIE: Oh
LILY: Check out
Little Miss Organised instagram page and you can see a photo of what Bonnie’s
youngest has done in that room.
BONNIE: First
time I have had to baby proof in 3 children, was that one.
LILY: He is a
force unto his own
BONNIE: He is
but we haven’t actually talked out toy jails at all so lets delve into the toy
jail side of things.
LILY: Isn’t
this episode all about toy jail Bonnie?
BONNIE: It is
all about toy jail and other strategies.
So toy jail is a strategy that you can use with your kids if they are
leaving toys out and this is really good especially if you have decluttered, it
is easier for things to pack stuff away but they are still just needing another
little strategy to help remind them that hey I cant leave my toys on the floor
or outside, so we have used this one at
home for maybe 6 months, I do go through phases where I am more strict on it
and then other phases where I am a bit more lax on it but it is actually a
really great way of A: teaching your kids responsibility but B: getting rid of
those 5 minute toys that your kids will tell you they want but they just keep
leaving them lying around because they are not really using them. So the idea of toy jail is basically anything
that your child has left out and has not been put away goes into toy jail and
in our house Sunday nights is when the jail gets emptied
LILY: I love it
BONNIE: And
anything still left in the jail gets donated.
Now there are 3 ways that the kids can get their toys out of jail. They
can rescue them, so first way is they can do a chore so something like wiping
the bench after breakfast, they can choose to have a toy out of jail instead of
having desert if they have eaten all of their dinner, and the 3rd
way is if they do an act of kindness for someone.
LILY: Oh I love
that
BONNIE: Yes so
it has to be a random act of kindness, like there have been times where someone
else has done something kind and I have said oh well done, like you got your
water bottle for your brother, like that is so thoughtful thank you so much
would you like to go and get a toy out of toy jail and they are like oh yeah
yeah and then all of a sudden one of my other kids will bring my water bottle
over from the fridge with this really expectant look on their face and it is
like sorry sweetheart that is not how it works.
LILY: Spontaneous
acts of kindness
BONNIE: And it
is really good because it just helps your kids think about others a little bit
more and helps them to have a positive framework for why we should be doing
things for each other rather than I have got to do something kind for my
sibling it is more about just encouraging that internal moral compass which you
know our kids really need that.
LILY: So lets
say you have decluttered the excess, you are implementing a toy rotation, you
are teaching your children responsibility, pack this up when you are finished
before you bring out the next thing and then you are encountering this issue
where they do still leave toys out or randomly all over the place, you give
them little time boundaries, little reminders, you have the little system set
up in place for when an item, when they have a chance to put an item back even
if you remind them and when something does into toy jail. So don’t just be like the ruthless warden
putting things in jail but
BONNIE: Or you
can be if that’s what works for you because I do that from time to time
LILY: After a
long week, but give them a chance and just make it age appropriate of course
and then give them the opportunity to earn those things back and like all
things with children whatever you decide to do, be consistent
BONNIE: Yes
stick with it, so make sure they know what the expectations are, and make sure
you stick with those expectations and make sure that your partner does too
because when you have got two parents who are on different pages and oh dad
said I could get that out, and then all of sudden you are like but they didn’t
earn it, then you have got some issues, so make sure that everybody is on the
same page about what the expectations are, how toys get released from jail, and
whether you do give a warning or not because sometimes a warning is not
necessary because you actually don’t want them to have to rely on you reminding
them all the time because as we get older we get less reminders, you know when
we are in prep we get a lot of support from our teachers and then when we are
in high school we don’t get quite as much molly coddling and handholding and
then we are out in the workforce we get even less so our job as parents is to
help you know make these kids independent and resilient and help them learn
these important life skills that will see them when they are in the workforce
and when they are having their own families down the track.
LILY: So
hopefully these tips will help you navigate the chaos that can become the toy
room and I definitely think in another episode Bonnie and I can go into the
nitty gritty of how to organise your toy room so we can make it the most
functional playroom that has ever been.
BONNIE: Absolutely,
so your tidy task for today is to
1: Declutter
your toys, if you haven’t already.
2: Implement a
toy rotation system if you think that that is something that would be
beneficial, try it out for a couple of months, if it doesn’t work for you feel
free to adapt okay everybody is different you need to be flexible and create a
solution that works for you and your family and
3: consider
doing a toy jail, try it out for a month or two, see how it works for your
family and most importantly be consistent.
LILY: That’s it
and just a quick reminder if you really want to learn how to get on top of your
toy room in fact any room in your house you can of course check out the
Essentials Guide our online course just head to our website
littlehomeorganised.com.au and that’s it for this weeks episode. Thank you so much for lending us your ears.
BONNIE: And
remember PROGRESS NOT PERFECTION.
LILY: See you
later
BONNIE: Bye
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