Getting Rid of Playroom for Home Office but 12 Year Old Wants to Keep ALL Toys

My son wasn't interested in getting rid of his toys until I suggested he sell them. He was happy to make some money.

Here's what you do. First, everything that she's too old for goes. You have a special person you want to give them to. She knows this person. She has a reaon to give these "younger" toys away because she knows this person.

Second, get some big bins and tell her that half of her toys are stored, and half can stay out. Let her help you decide which ones go into the bins. She can change out the bins every two weeks. That way she doesn't get tired of her toys.

If she balks, get tough. Tell her that if she doesn't separate them out into bins, YOU will. Don't manipulate her. Just make it happen. You hold all the cards because YOU are the mother.

Oh my gosh I never even got a Barbie when I was growing up. We couldn't afford it! I'll take them. She can have visitation rights.

Get her a loft bed in her room. It's like a bunk bed with only the top bunk. That way she has plenty of room for her stuff. And not my business but If your kids wants to keep her toys and still plays with them don't push technologies off on her they hit that stage soon enough. Put her stuff in her room and let it go for awhile.

Put it all in her bedroom.....what's wrong with that? She'll get tired of the clutter and naturally decide she's done with stuff.

Invite all her friends over all the time. They'll either think she's really cool and playing with toys is wonderful or they'll ask her why she has toys. Peer pressure....used to your own advantage.

yes. yes i do.
here is my advice.
you walk your 12 year old into the playroom, give her a big rubbermaid tub (or two, depending on how much space she's going to have) and you tell her 'we're going to pare down your toys. whatever doesn't fit into this tub is going to goodwill.'
i cannot for the life of me fathom bribing a tween with a cellphone to do what clearly needs to be done. what has parenting turned into?
12 year olds need choices, a voice, and a cut-off point.
and parents who aren't afraid of them.
khairete
S.

I may be in the minority? But if she wants to hang on to her toys for a while, let her. She's your only kid and she will be grown up and gone way too soon. Find room in her room, maybe a small corner of your new office, or in a basement, if you have one. Eventually she may be ready to give them away, or maybe want to save the Barbie stuff for her own little girl. I would have LOVED to have had some from my mom when I was young!

Coincidentally, I just watched Toy Story 3 with my son for the 3rd time and, as usual, I teared up at the end when Andy was packing to leave for college and said goodbye to his toys. I know, I'm a sentimental sap!

Tell her to rent a storage place. She doesn't have money for one?
Then she has to give them up.

Either SHE goes through them, or you do, without her say so.

"So sorry, honey, but I have decided to use that room as a home office, period. I need it to be clean and organized to get the most use from it.
The yrs of a playroom being a priority have long passed. I love you, but not your stuff. You are so much more than the things you own. You dont need a toy reminder of how much we love you. Change is difficult sometimes but necessary. You have one week to find a new place for stuff and it cannot crowd your room. After that week, everything goes to Goodwill."

My 11 year old has very few toy type things anymore. She does have a few things she wants to hold on to though, so those are in the garage. No way would my 12 year old kid have a playroom.

Now my kids do basically have the basement, where the bigger toys are, but even then it's not much. It's more sports related things that they can play with friends on rainy days.

So you give your daughter a tub, what fits in there she can keep in her room, and what doesn't she can help you sell or donate.

You actually DO have an out here. Her desire for a phone. Recruit her help in getting her things together for a small yard sale (Or sign up on a local selling site and post some items that she will agree to sell. These are her things, if she wants to trade in the 'kid toys' and buy the grown-up phone, she's got to make some sacrifices. Essentially, SHE'S buying her phone. Once she sees the purge as a means to acquire a phone, she will be more than willing.

Now, the phone is another issue entirely that I know you didn't ask about, but that's your call. You get to decide what bells and whistles her phone gets, not your daughter.

Good luck!

Once my child learned she could sell things for money or donate and help a child with nothing, it made a big difference. Don't bribe her with a phone. That's dumb. You're the parent and this situation has natural consequences. She essentially has two bedrooms, while you, the homeowner, have nowhere to work. I agree with the two tubs. Move it or lose it. You're asking her to let you have the room. I'd be telling her you're changing the room, so if she wants any of it, she needs to come get it by Monday.

Do you have any room for storage? If it's difficult for her to purge that much at once, she could make three piles: keep, donate/trash, and storage. The storage pile would be for things she really doesn't use or need but is having a hard time letting go. Tell her that after the things are in storage for a few months, you will revisit her donating the toys if she feels like she doesn't need them anymore. In my experience (with myself and my kids) the time spent in boxes makes the items a little less 'precious' and easier to donate or trash.

And I would definitely offer the phone as an incentivizer only if you plan on getting her one anyway and it just works out. Otherwise, you could offer something else as an incentive if you felt it was appropriate (like a trip to a place she really likes).

In the end, remember you're the parent and it's your house. Having a difficult time with change deserves understanding, pitching a fit shouldn't be tolerated, KWIM?

Oh yea, that was the whole purpose of getting more barbie stuff, so you could spread them out and make the barbie life more realistic. After all, doesn't everyone have a RV, corvette, condo, airplane, and a make shift shopping mall?

If her toys are scattered all over, then isn't she playing with them? It sounds like it is all a set, so it is not that she is holding on to half a set of legos, a puzzle with a note stating missing 3 pieces, and a barbie corvette without a steering wheel.

When she stops playing with them, get rid of them. If you are in need of an office, have a talk and put some shelving in her room to shift it all that way.

Give her a chance to put the toys away without saying goodbye to them. She's twelve and it might be good for her to *try out* a room that's a little more grown up.

Get some sturdy boxes and ask her to wrap up her "treasures." Find a safe, secure place in the basement or garage to put them. If it turns out that she has really grown past them, she will be happy to leave them boxed up until she decides (maybe way down the road) to pass them along to a younger child.

I don't know about the phone thing. But my oldest granddaughter received a cell phone when she was twelve. The only things she can do on it are call and text (oh, and take pictures). Her mother says it is really helpful to be able to communicate in these ways. Happily, she hasn't lost or broken the phone; if she did, she would have to replace it herself or choose to do without.

Is there no way to split the room? Say with her barbie houses and stuff up against one wall and your desk area against another? does she still play with them? Because I still played with Barbie probably through my sophomore year of high school.

Many people want to hold onto "stuff" for whatever reason.
You are the adult, so you decide just how much stuff there is space for.
Personally, if she's not interested in helping you clean out the playroom, I would box everything up and put it out in the garage.
Let her figure out what she wants to bring into her room.
I would encourage her to either donate the rest, OR, have a yard sale! Kids this age love having spending $ so maybe that would be a good incentive :-)

I'm in the minority too. Let her keep some. Let her hang on to being a kid as long as possible. Have her pick half to keep. Then you get half the room which should be enough for the next year or two till she's ready. My parents never really made me give up my toys... And they came in handy when I had kids! They did pack them away eventually of course.

We have a room for toys but it did turn into a junky spillover mess.

I got some cube shelving, plastic bins and a large book shelf and we set to work putting sets back together and putting things in their "homes". Things without a home had to go, which meant making choices about which things were most important. Once they prioritized, what was left was all tidy and easy to put away when they were done. It has stayed 99% clean ever since.

My kids are 12 and 14, and they still play with many toys in addition to their computer stuff but as time goes on they are willing to let go of more things. It won't be long before your daughter doesn't want those dollhouses, so I think for now you need to do some organization but not force her to empty out the whole room.

You'll have many years in your future for a dedicated home office, but you only have a few years left of having this child. Consider holding off on it, or sharing the space. The idea of giving her a loft bed in her room was a good one too.

eBay is how my kids part with toys. They keep the money once shipping, etc, has been covered.

Help her pare the toys down but, please don't force her to get rid of things and "grow up". There is plenty of time for that

Growing up, I don't remember being asked about what would become of my toys. Slowly those which were broken, or fit for re-homing were given away. I was never one to be fussed about it. I didn't expect that I would have a say in those decisions. My kid is 3. We've talked about how we pass on the things that he has outgrown. He has bought into it, and volunteers things to pass on.

I think you are entitled to your office. I suggest you go about this differently. Tell her you will be putting everything away in bins in the garage. She can ask for any 3, 5, 7 items (whatever number you feel is reasonable) from the garage every Sunday. Those toys will be kept in her room. The following Sunday, she can swap them out for others.

Best,
F. B.

PS- proceed with caution. People on those hoarders shows sometimes explain that their hoarding started when mom, step mom, etc tossed out their special toy and they have had an unnatural need to have/keep things ever since.

I understand you want her cooperation, but you might have to accept not having her cooperation and just letting her know that she can have x amount of toys or whatever she chooses to keep must fit in y amount of space. If you choose that route, make sure your parameters are very clear.

It really is ok to go the cell phone route. Nothing wrong with saying she can have it if she can earn it. Maybe she doesn't NEED a phone. (After all, many of us moms survived just fine through childhood and into our 20's without cell phones. I didn't get my first cell phone until I was 26, I think.) At the same time, is there anything WRONG with her having her own phone?

No judgements, just something to think about. My oldest will be turning 8 soon, and he has asked us when he will get a cell phone. I tried being completely honest and told him that I really didn't know but that when the time was right we would get him a phone. That answer didn't fly, so I said 16 :-)

Does your 12 year old actually still play with this stuff or does she just want to hold onto it? Do you have any storage space? Either you are giving her a choice or you are not. Which is it?

She seems to really like the Barbie houses and cars and such. Does she really PLAY with them or are they just there?? if she is sentimental about those then store them away for her, she may want to give them to her daughter someday. I don't know how big they are, I never had them, and my girls never wanted them, but would they be able to fit on a specially made shelf in her room? that would save floor space.

It's really not fair to tell your kid that she has to get rid of HER stuff because YOU want to use the room that has always held her stuff for yourself.

Seriously? You have to bribe her to do what you want?

At 12 is she actually playing with that stuff, or she just wants to keep it? If she's playing with it regularly then I would question why you want to force her to grow up more quickly by getting rid of the toys and giving her a cell. If she doesn't play much anymore then this is really easy...

You tell her how much she can keep and then have her make three piles, donate, trash and keep. Then you enjoy your new office!

Do her grandparents live close by? Maybe each set could have a Barbie house! Ha, that would teach them..

In about a year. She will not be playing with them any longer and will not want her friends to see them, so maybe That will encourage her to at least pack them up and put 2 of them in the attic.

Loved the answers of Gamma G and Sherry.

She is 12 and her time with those kinds of toys will be short lived and limited. Just move those things into her room or even over to her grandparents homes if they live close by. (Loved that suggestion too.)

The cell phone matter is separate. My son wasn't ready for the responsibility of a cell phone when he was 12. So I didn't get him one. It didn't matter to me what his friends had or didn't have. Even his sports activities didn't warrant him having a cell phone at that age. His uncle however, did get him a cell phone. That experience was a disaster for his uncle. LOL. DS had the phone for 3 months and the bill was extremely high from him ordering games which he thought were free but ultimately were not.

Have fun decorating your new office.