It’s January and chances are you are di-holidaying your home and your kids are coming down from all the present opening high. Your home is now invaded by a whole new load of toys and you may not know what to do with them. With so many new toys they received this season it may seem a bit excessive. You may be wondering if your child really needs 5 new monster trucks or 8 stuffed animals. Before your child starts to de-box or open all their new toys, it is best to have a game plan. Here is what to do with all those Christmas presents.
Let them open a few toys of their choosing and store the rest away. Now you will have a great stash of rewards that you can give to your child when they do something good. You can use them for motivation to get chores done or if they are younger they can be used as incentives to learn the potty. You can space out the toys throughout the year and break them out when you really need them to keep themselves occupied.
Another great idea on how you can use all these Christmas toys is to let your child know that they won’t get to open the new toys until they go through their old toys to donate. This will help declutter their play area and prevent your home from being consumed by toys. For every 2-3 toys that they choose to donate, they get a new toy to play with. This also helps them learn about charity and how it is time to give away the things that we no longer play with.
If you still have gift receipts to the toys that they received, you may want to consider returning them for store credit. Choose gifts that you know your child will not miss or that they have many of. You can save the store credit as a gift card for them to use to purchase a toy of their choice as a special reward or you can even look to selling the gift card for money. There are many sites online that can help you do just that. Use the cash to pay for fun activities such as soccer or swimming lessons. Or you can use the money towards fun family activities such as a trip to the movies or going out bowling.