We're in the process of culling down our stuff to prepare our condo for sale, and though we're generally lean with toys, there's plenty we can throw away because LO (3.5) doesn't play with them. I'm slowly doing this when she's not here because otherwise nothing would ever get tossed, and 99% of the time she doesn't even realize they're gone, but there will inevitably be that time that she'll notice something missing. What are some of the ways that you successfully explained toys being gone to kids this age?
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This might not be a lot of help to you (have you already given them away?) and it may be idealistic, but I wouldn't do it without her knowledge. I would explain that you can't have as many toys as you do, and some kids don't have any toys at all so you're going to give some toys that you don't use so much to them, and then maybe ask her to pick which 5 (or whatever) toys get donated. This worked with my son.
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@erinbaderin: This is my preferred approach, and one I usually start with, but right now it works maybe a quarter of the time. And given the timing of needing to get things cleaned up for sale, there are definitely things we just have to move forward and get rid of. She generally hasn't even noticed, but I'm sure it'll happen that she will so I'm just thinking of creative explanations. She's terribly logical and calls my bluff often, but the "you weren't even playing with these" is not something she's accepting of either.
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@Mrs. Carrot: Good luck!
We sent the kids out of the house for a day of purging and packing.
We kinda had three piles. Stuff to be packed away in their room that we wanted to keep but not have out and showing. Another pile of stuff we thought "maybe" we could get rid of without them knowing about that went to the garage. And a pile that went straight to the trash/goodwill.
We haven't really had anything that was in the garage that they have asked about so its about to be purged. The out of sight out of mind worked. Heck there are only 2-3 toys that got packed up in their room that they have asked about.
When they ask we first try to avoid the question. "Oh, I'm not sure where that went, why dont we play with XYZ instead". If they push and ask again we just say "We needed to let another kid have a turn with that toy and we dont have room for all of the toys here.".
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Not sure if this is the same, but when I rotate toys for my niece (almost 3) and she asks for things that are put away, I tell her I don't know where they are and we play with something that is available instead. If I didn't, she'd have every toy in the house out every single day. Maybe an "I'm not sure, but do you see this cool puzzle (or whatever)" would work?
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Similar to above I sometimes just say "I don't know" and redirect. If I included them on every decision it would never get done. Mostly I'm getting rid of small stuff, bigger stuff we do try to discuss.
My usual plan is to remove things to a box in the garage. If no one asks, after a while I throw out or donate or whatever. Not sure that fits your timeline.
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