The Magic of the Toy Draft

With Christmas approaching, the reality of more toys coming into the home becomes ever so clear.  You start looking around, wondering where everything will go and how you will convince your kids to part with things they don't play with much anymore.

Enter the magic of the Toy Draft.

We learned this tactic from friends and have since been employing it for years.  It has been a tremendous tool to help our children prioritize their things and happily share their abundance with others.

I initially thought our kids enjoyed this so much because they love sports drafts, like the NBA draft.  But this year, even Julian has happily marched through his turns, choosing favorites and helping me bag up the toys that will get to play for another family's team.  The magic really seems to be in giving children the complete say on what matters most to them, with the added feeling of victory when they look at their keep pile and see that they have saved all of their favorites.

To prepare: 

1.  Choose a category of items you want to minimize.  Stuffed animals, matchbox cars, sports equipments, books, lego sets, etc.  

2.  Gather everything belonging to that category.

3.  Display them in a large open space.

4.  Based on the amount of items present and the space you want to get everything down to, determine how many choices each child will get.

5.  Explain the rules.  Children will choose one item to keep per turn, rotating through until the number of choices per child has been reached.  Children should choose the most important item remaining each time, knowing that what is not chosen will be donated for other children to receive joy from those toys.

6.  Start your draft!  We usually start youngest to oldest, and then switch up the order for each round following so that everyone has a chance to "pick first".  

If the draft ends and you have a child disappointed about an item still remaining, open negotiations.  We have only had to do this once, and an older brother happily offered to switch his choice so that his younger brother could have that last special thing.  No one has cried at the end of a draft, and they always comment on how much easier it is to clean up since everything fits better.  Just last week, Ish asked me if we could do a book draft because his shelf was getting too tight!

The only other obstacle we have faced in a draft is when a child feels obligated to choose something based on who gave it to them.  So now we always start our drafts by reminding the boys that everything we have before us has been well-loved and well-played with, which means that the goal of the gift-giver has already been met.  

The Toy Draft: helping children learn to prioritize and share.  This Is How We Do It.