My 9-year-old son recently declared that he wanted to get rid of his little-kid toys.

For years, our house has been cluttered with hundreds of small objects scattered about by my son.

Picking them up, and using all kinds of incentives and/or punishments to get him to collect them, has been mostly a losing battle.

“Don’t worry,” our friends told us. “It won’t always be like this. He’ll lose interest in all those toys and he’ll have just a few things.”

Well, it finally happened. My son announced the big decision and my wife, a dedicated if not entirely successful anti-clutter activist, was thrilled. We put the air conditioner on high and spent hours sorting through all his stuff.

It was a sad moment. Another vestige of his early childhood was going the way of the, well, dinosaur (he tossed many of those in the giveaway bin). But with all that space suddenly opened up, it was hard to stay gloomy for long.

He said good-bye to hundreds of little cars and blocks and dozens of plastic animals and dragons. The most surprising things he dumped were his Legos, which were his favorite toy until a few months ago.

He announced, “I’m too old to play with Legos.”

Only a few were spared. “These are cooler than the other ones,” he said, holding a few cylinder-shaped attachments. “They hold more weaponry.”

That was a little out of character, given that my son is generally a pacifist, even if he does like watching the Military Channel. But who could argue?

Finally, he revealed the real motivation for the purge. It gave me a jolt, because it shows he’s seriously anticipating the new demands placed on a fourth-grader.

“I need more space on my desk to do homework,” he said.

Indeed, the top of his desk is now cleared off and ready for action. The Legos went to a friend who still plays with them, and other bins went to a grateful new mom.

Now, my son says, his play will focus on a few areas. He has three Nintendo game players and he’s begun organizing his Yu-Gi-Oh! cards, his Pokemon cards and his baseball cards.

We have yet to trip over those. And they don’t get stuck in the vacuum.

Source: The Star-Ledger - NJ.com, NJ
http://blog.nj.com/parentalguidance/2008/07/my_tweener_son_gets_rid_of_his.html