Importance of Toy Rotation for Children

Kids have short attention spans. They get bored easily and tend to move from toy to toy rapidly. The toys they love to play with on Christmas Day may already be forgotten by the time the new year rolls around. So how do you keep their interest in their toys? Let’s talk about toy rotation!

You could just keep buying toys to keep your little ones entertained, but that’s not sustainable and could very well spoil them. Toy rotation appeases that short attention span and increases the longevity of each toy. It’s a fairly simple idea to follow:

• Basically, a parent divides and separates their children’s toys.
• Some of their toys – but not all of them – are kept available for the children to play with.
• Other toys are removed and stored away from where the children would have access to them.
• After a predetermined amount of time. The parent can change or rotate toys so that some toys have been temporarily unavailable to the children (and potentially they have even been momentarily forgotten). This is what’s known as, “toy rotation.”

Make Olaf and Simba the only choices for a while, then swap them out with a power ranger and Iron Man. The benefits of toy rotation are that from the children’s point of view, they’re consistently getting access to seemingly new or previously unavailable toys. It makes their own toys more desirable, meaning fewer tantrums and the development of concentration.

As a nice bonus, it means your house is a little tidier!

How to Start a Toy Rotation

The first step is to take stock of the toys that your child already has. Get rid of worn out or broken toys so you can start this process fresh! Then look at the remaining toys and divide them according to their function. Are they books? Are they Dolls? Blocks? Art supplies?

Next, take one toy from each category—a doll, a book, a teddy bear, and an action figure, for example. These will be the only toys available for your child until you rotate them out.

The idea of taking toys away may seem a bit mean at first, but it does them a favor in the long run. It teaches then to value what they have, and allows them to focus on their play without shiny things twinkling in their peripherals.

This process also gives you a way to gage which toys your children no longer have any interest in. If they don’t seem interested in a toy when you rotate it in, it may be time to replace it with something new and exciting. You can always donate the old one to charity or give it to a younger cousin!

This toy rotation system can reduce boredom and frustration for you and your child. Itt can even help you to keep your home cleaner. Perhaps most importantly, it’s easy to implement!

We want to hear how your toy rotation is going, so let us know!