All About Toys

Are there some toys that are better than others? Which ones should we buy?

Toys play a very important role in children's lives (sometimes adults' too!). They help in developing fine motor and gross motor skills, bring out creativity and imagination and teach values like sharing, caring and moving on.

A toy should be something that inspires the child to play. One might wonder, no matter how many toys I get for my child, he ends up playing with kitchen utensils, apparently a spoon and a spatula are inspiring enough, so do they really need all those fancy toys?

Let's go a little deeper now

From the point of view of a child, everything around him, from expensive remote controlled car to sticks, stones, leaves and kitchen utensils, is a toy. Let us try to divide these toys based on to what extent a toy engages the child.

On one end of the spectrum we have sticks, stones, leaves and mud as they engage children in every aspect. There is a complete physical and mental involvement when a child plays with anything that he finds in nature. They run around to get these items, sit, bend, jump, pluck - hence involving most of the muscles of their body. Meanwhile, their brain is just as involved. They think of stories, imagine characters and play them out. A stone could be acting as food, as something they are selling, as a house for an insect or an imaginary animal. This is imagination and creativity at their best.

On the other end of the spectrum we have screens - TVs, mobiles and tablets. A child is almost completely inactive while he engages with any of these 'toys' - physically and mentally. There is zero creativity involved.

WHO says no screens should be given to children under 2; and not more than an hour a day after they turn 2 - the lesser the better. Studies have shown that screen time for babies and toddlers result in delayed language, social and emotional developments, shorter attention spans, sleep problems and weight issues. Some studies suggest that increased screen time can even result in autism-like behaviour in children.

Let's list out (yes, I love lists, you might have noticed by now!) the kind of toys we can offer our children - based on physical and mental engagement of the child. Please remember that these are toy categories, they might overlap. As in, one toy might belong to two or three categories.

1. Open ended toys and sensory play toys: These include a variety of toys like wooden blocks, rainbow stackers, magnet tiles/blocks, peg dolls, animal figurines, cars, trucks, train tracks, Lego blocks, marbles, pompoms, kitchen set, doctor's kit, play dough, kinetic sand, art supplies etc. They are right next to sticks and stones and mud. The child will have to get involved both physically and mentally and give his complete attention while playing with these. Imagination and creativity play a major role here. These toys will also last for years. Most of the open ended toys in our house are played with by my 2 year old and our neighbour's 9 year old, with equal enthusiasm!

2. Gross motor open ended toys: These include trampolines, slides, swings, tricycles/bicycles, scooters, tents, tunnels, hula hoops etc. I don't need to explicitly tell you how physically and mentally involved a child is while playing with these.

3. Puzzles and games: These include all kinds of puzzles, board games, tangrams, memory games, card games etc. They do not require the child to run around much, but they still require quite a lot of finer physical movements and do not render the child completely inactive. Mental involvement is at its peak with these as well.

4. STEM toys: STEM stands for Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics. STEM toys include magnifying glasses, microscopes, telescopes, marble runs, circuit kits, bug kits, construction toys and so on. These toys increase the child's engagement in STEM and of course there is a thorough involvement of the brain while playing with these.

5. Shiny and loud toys: These include remote controlled cars, toys that make loud noises and/or have flashy lights (can I just go ahead and rename this category as "annoying toys"?!). These toys do too much on their own and there isn't much involvement from the child's end. They are super exciting in the beginning, hold the child's attention for a short while, might include some level of physical movements as well, but children sooner than later will get bored with them.

There are so many toys out there, that I might have missed out on a few. Please forgive my ignorance in that case. I have purposely not listed educational apps and games played on mobiles and tablets. No matter how much they teach a child, there is a long term health risk associated with these kind of 'toys'. They harm children's eyes, affect postures and might even pose the risk of addiction - so I would never recommend them.

The general idea is to find out what kind of toys are most benefitting for our little ones. Because let's face it, toys and books are a kind of investment we make on our children. They teach them so much and are such an essential part of shaping their childhood. Children have an enormous capacity for curiosity and imagination. And it is imperative that we tap on this capacity, make space for it to grow and nurture it with utmost love and care.