Hoda Kotb and Jenna Bush Hager justify getting rid of their kids’ toys

Hoda Kotb and Jenna Bush Hager shared some mom insight on a hot topic: throwing away their children's belongings.

Hoda, who is in the process of moving with daughters Haley, 7, and Hope, 5, said on TODAY on August 14, "You can't have something new if you have old stuff. It works that way with everything in life. Clear it out. Say goodbye. Your kids only need this box of all their keepsakes."

Jenna, who has three children — Mila, 11, Poppy, 9, and Hal, 4 — told Hoda that she did "a major clean-out" while her daughters were at sleepaway camp. "You know, when I feel out of sorts," she began, "I just throw things away."

Then Jenna paused, made a face and said, "I got busted."

Unbeknownst to their mother, one of the girls had a trophy that she wanted to save, but ... it was not saved.

"What was the one?" Hoda asked cautiously.

"It was for a dance," Jenna said. "A participation. It wasn't like, 'Best Dancer.' They don't do that anymore. It was like, 'You danced. So you get a trophy.'"

"And you tossed it?" Hoda asked, guessing how the story ends.

"Yeah," Jenna admitted. "I tossed it. I got in there and really went to work."

"Know what? I think you're teaching your kids a lesson that things are not important," Hoda said.

"By the way, just to be clear, I was like, 'Hmm,'" she said, describing the way she reacted to her daughters as she shrugged her shoulders in apparent confusion. "And they forgot about it."

Jenna insisted that if you ever happen to throw away a treasured possession, feigning ignorance and seeming curious about the missing sentimental item is totally the way to go. The less said, the better.

"And guess what?" she continued, "Four seconds later, they didn't even want that."

"I think we're teaching them a lesson about material stuff: it's not important," said Hoda.

This article was originally published on TODAY.com