Toys vs Experience

Have you ever had the question whether having toys is equal to having an activity or outing? Which one do you think is going to leave a more lasting impact on your kids?

Toys can play an important part in growing up and learning. Puzzles help with fine motor skills and shapes. Books teach literacy. Playing with toys can help children develop friendship and start conversations.

While toys can be a helpful tool, they can also become the easy answer at the end of a long, hard day. Sometimes it can be easier to give them a toy than to sit and converse with your children. They can also be misleading on how educational they really are.

Northern Arizona University states that the use of electronic toys do not promote language. Books and blocks yet have shown to do so. Ready made toys can also stifle a growing imagination.

Try giving your child a bunch of odds and ends and challenge them to make something. You will surprise yourself with how much fun they will have, and you will have a great chance to talk about what they are doing and see how your child thinks.

Having actual experiences with your child is very important. It is more real for the child and builds a connection between parent and child. Seeing and touching a real horse is more valued to a child than seeing a horse in a picture. Seeing the real thing allows them to comprehend their actual size, smell and feel. They can connect on a more personal level to a living thing. Spending time with the horse and their parents will make a forever memory. That memory would last and be valued more than the plastic toy horse that they lost or broke years before.

The art of socializing and conversation becomes a difficult thing to learn when people isolate themselves. This can happen when things and toys are thought to be more important experiences. Nothing encourages a growing child to be creative and to think more than strong relationships with their parents. Interactions is where they learn to problem solve, understand empathy and grow intellectually.

Toys can be useful and fun but shouldn’t be used as the final answer. Toys should be besides to, but not instead of, you.

~Ms. Dotty
NAEYC Coordinator
(National Association for the Education of Young Children)