• Worries over the mess created while playing with toys evolves into understanding
Image: PEXELS
It's 10.30pm and I just finished picking up all the toys in the living room. This is my routine. Every single day.
I divided my living room into two sections: the TV section and the play area. I moved the couch to the centre of the room so that the back side of the living room can be turned into my son's play area.
I laid out the area with a kiddy rug printed with streets, houses, animals and the like. In this area he has a ball pit, number mats, a storage bin for toys, with some of the toys spilling on the floor obviously, and a small stand for smaller toys.
I have also provided him with a mini table that was supposed to transition him from the feeding chair. However, the table and chair are probably the least used items in the play area.
For a while, when he was younger, he concentrated most of his play in this section. Of course there was always a mess created, but at least it was concentrated in one space.
However, my son has recently realised that the front of the couch is where the fun is. He can watch TV, play with his toys if he brings them to the front, climb on the couch or run on it, and roll around on the nicer carpet between the couch and TV.
So instead of having one play section, my whole house has turned into one play area. I barely have space to sit on my own couch. Since I choose to wake up to a clean and functional space every morning, I have no option but to clear out the whole living room and put the toys away at the end of every day. Sometimes when the mess is too much, I clean up twice a day in between naps.
I know they say a messy home is a sign of a happy childhood, but behind every mess is a mum who cleans, clears, stores, organises and repeats. It really is a tedious job. We want clean homes but we also want our children to thrive in their homes as well.
I have often thought about reducing the number of toys, then we realised that our son knows all of his toys. He will look for a specific toy randomly when we have long forgotten about it and won't stop crying until we find it. He knows each toy by name and every book he owns.
On a good day, the kid will play with about 90 per cent of the toys he owns. You would know because you would be picking up all of them at the end of the day. These include books, flash cards, cars, musical instruments and so on.
It's only when we understand that each toy helps a kid learn the functions of specific items that we understand that these toys and these ‘messes’ are serving a bigger picture in our children's cognitive skills and real-life application.