When you give a toy, you endorse values
When early-childhood specialist Honey Schnapp of Cambridge leads workshops for parents, she often asks them what values and skills they want to impart to their children. The answers always include respect for others, kindness, empathy, and the ability to think creatively.
Then she asks them to think about the toys their children play with, and whether the toys support or undermine those values.
Parents often look surprised. Who thinks about buying toys in terms of values they communicate?
Our children, that's who. Well, no, not consciously. But when a loving parent or grandparent, aunt or uncle, gives a toy to a child, it comes with an implicit message: ''I endorse this toy and the play it encourages."
''It's not that [if you buy a toy of violence] it means your son will grow up to be an ax-murderer," says Schnapp. ''But if the message from the toy is to use aggression to solve problems, it will be harder to communicate your values of peaceful conflict resolution."
Here are two other things parents may not realize about toys:
Less is more. Sheer quantity can be a problem. ''I hear many parents say, 'My child has a roomful of toys and he says he's bored,' " says early childhood educator Diane Levin of Wheelock College. That's because it overwhelms a child to look at a room or closet full of toys and have to decide, ''What can I play with now?" If your child gets many toys for Christmas, her advice is to put some away for use weeks or months from now.
Repetition is good. Parents also tend to worry that it's boring for a child to play with the same toy over and over. Well, no. If anything, pat yourself on the back when you see that happening. It means you made a good choice: The toy is open-ended and interesting enough to hold her interest over time. ''Repetition is what gives young children mastery, and along with that, self confidence and competence," says Levin. ''Repetition allows her to be creative and inventive, using her own ideas about how to play."
And guess what? Children take messages and values from that, too: for instance, that there is sense of satisfaction to sticking with something and feeling successful at it. If there's a steady diet of toys that can only be played with in limited, scripted ways, two or three years down the road, in first or second grade, she may not be able to apply herself to an academic task because she's used to instant gratification. Even so-called educational toys can backfire in a similar way. Rather than learning basic skills as promised, children learn only to be entertained. Or, if the toy is too challenging at a given stage of development, rather than learn to stick with it and get an ''I-can-do-it!" feeling of success, he learns to give up when something is too hard.
The bottom line, say Schnapp and Levin, is for parents to connect the dots between toys and the values, skills and behaviors our children take from them. Co-founders of TRUCE, Teachers Resisting Unhealthy Children's Entertainment (truceteachers.org), they offer these guidelines for toy buying:
Stay away from electronic toys for young children. A plain stuffed character from ''Mr. Incredible" is a better choice than one that talks.
Choose toys that offer a challenge but also have something in common with skills or interests a child already has. He likes to play firefighter? Maybe he's ready for a fire hat that will encourage him to move into dramatic play, rather than a bigger fire engine with more bells and whistles. She likes to stack big blocks to make towers? Maybe she's ready for smaller blocks, or ones with interlocking qualities.
Choose toys that can be played with in more than one way. That encourages creative thinking and ensures the toy will still be interesting at the next level of development.
Stay away from toys that encourage only superficial interaction. Toys linked to videos, TV, or movies come with ''scripts" that trap children in a story line, rather than help them work out ideas about their own experiences.
To find out if you're attuned with the best sorts of toys, try this quiz, based on TRUCE's recommendations:
1. Which toy doesn't encourage creative play?
a. Latches Fire Truck by Melissa and Doug (about $40, recommended for ages 3 and up). A sturdy wooden truck with latched doors and windows that open and close.
b. PlayDoh My Little Pony, Pinkie Pie Pretty Parlor, by Hasbro (about $10, recommended for ages 3 and up). PlayDoh clay and props.
c. BOX-Carz by Box-Carz ($7 each, ages 3 and up). Car-shaped boxes that children can step into.
d. Play Structures and Kids' Cottages by Bazoongi Kids ($30 to $40, for ages 3 and up). Playhouses and tents for indoor and outdoor use.
Answer: b. Surprised? Usually, PlayDoh (as well as any kind of clay or manipulative material) is an excellent choice because children can play with it any way they want. Not this time. Whenever any toy is linked to a movie or TV show, it comes with a story line. This particular PlayDoh also encourages gender stereotyping: The clay is "girl" colors, pink and purple.
a, c, and d are open-ended toys, good for your child's development and good for your pocketbook: You're more likely to get your money's worth because he'll still be playing with it six months from now.
2. Which toy promotes sharing and cooperative play?
a. Teddy Mix & Match by Ravensburger, ($12, ages 2 1/2 to 5). A memory/matching game.
b. Backyard Challenge Picnic Pack by Spalding ($30, ages 3 and up). Equipment for playing games like kickball and tug of war.
c. Bambino Dino by Family Pastimes ($15, ages 5 to 9). Board game.
d. Stacking Emergency Vehicle Set and Stacking Construction Set by Melissa and Doug ($20, ages 2 and up). Wooden vehicles with interchangeable parts.
Answer. This is a trick question. All of these toys are meant to develop skills for sharing, turn-taking, and cooperation, but it depends on how children play with them. If they are too competitive at too young an age, winning overwhelms anything else. Don't try to stifle competitive urges altogether, but for children under 5, look for toys that don't feed into it and monitor the play to steer it into cooperation rather than competition.
3. Which toy is most likely to promote pre-literacy skills?
a. Leap Frog Learning Drum by Leap Frog ($20, ages 6 months and up). Tap the drum and letters, numbers, and symbols appear.
b. Musical instruments by 1st Note ($1.25 to $22, ages 3 and up). Instruments in metal and wood with color-coded sheet music.
c. "Spiderman 2" by Meredith Books/Columbia Pictures ($16, ages 3 and up). Book with sound effects.
d. Toby the Totbot by Fisher Price ($20, 1 and up). Robot whose screen lights up with letters and numbers.
Answer: b.
a, c, and d mislead parents into thinking they will give a toddler a leg up. In fact, so-called "smart" electronic toys inhibit a toddler's brain, not enhance it; all a child learns is to expect to be entertained. c, even though it's a book, may be the most offensive: It undermines the acquisition of reading skills by diverting attention from the words, and it makes traditional books boring in comparison. (Never mind that it's linked to a movie rated PG13.) b, on the other hand, teaches that symbols stand for something. That's an essential building block for literacy.
4. Which of these toys is among the worst this season?
a. Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles S.W.A.T. Battle Pack by Playmates ($50, 4 and up). Set includes SWAT battle shell, action figures, and weapons.
b. Lord of the Rings Playset, Orc Soldiers and Battering Ram by Toy Riz ($15, 5 and up). Action figures with monster features.
c. McDonald's Deluxe Mealtime Server Set by Creative Designs ($20, 4 and up). Apron, headphones, and props to play McDonald's.
d. Beyblade Hidden Spirits Dranzer V by Hasbro ($10, 8 and up). A fighting game.
Answer: Each is offensive in its own way, focusing on content that children wouldn't on their own include in their play, and thus taking them away from content that might have relevance. a, b, and d glamorize and encourage violence; c makes unhealthy food part of play; b is linked to a PG13 movie, leading a child to think the content is OK for him.
5. Which toy is most likely to teach pre-math skills?
a. Play Activity Packs by Lauri ($15, 4 to 7). Chipboard shapes in various themes (fire/rescue, dinosaur, construction) with equipment for stringing, lacing and sorting.
b. Zoobs by Infinitoy ($5 and up, 4 1/2 and up). Construction set with jointed pieces.
c. Twistix by Small World Kids ($15, 3 and up). Geometric building pieces.
d. Make Your Own Jigsaw Puzzle by Melissa and Doug ($5, 4 and up). Wooden pieces and template.
Answer: All of the above. There are no numbers involved in these toys, but children learn about spatial relationships, the foundation for all math learning, through sorting, grouping, and building.
6. Which toy is most likely to promote healthy sexuality? a. Lil Bratz, Night Time Funk Gift Set by MGM Entertainment ($20, ages 4 and up). Set of four dolls with "club" clothes: spiked heels, make-up, skimpy outfits.
b. Barbie Beautiful Makeup Book by Readers Digest Children's Books ($13, no age rating). Book with four lipsticks and rouge applicator.
c. Blokus by Educational Insights ($30, ages 5 and up). Board game that includes stacking, sorting, and design-making.
d. Sunset Mall by Imaginarium ($70, 3 and up). Dollhouse-like structure with cafe, boutique, soda shop, and hair salon.
Answer: c. It's gender neutral. Any time a game, book, or toy focuses young girls on older female behavior that is developmentally way ahead of them, they'll work that much harder to figure it out because the message they're getting is that this is for them, too.
7. Which toys are most likely to help with hand-eye coordination?
a. Magnetic Table Top Easel by ALEX ($40, 3 and up). Collapsible, double-sided easel and chalkboard.
b. Bean Bag Toss by Melissa and Doug ($40, 4 and up). Stand-up wooden animal characters for bean-bag toss.
c. Mini Golf Set by ALEX ($20, 3 and up). Soft foam miniature golf set for indoor or outdoor use.
d. Color Dominoes by eeBoo ($13, 3 and up). Simple drawings of familiar items on sturdy cardboard dominoes.
Answer: b or c, but you can't go wrong with a or d. Since hand-eye coordination involves connecting a thought in the brain to a physical motion, it's not just about gross motor skills ("There's the basket, I want to aim for it.") but also small ones ("That word starts with a T, I want to write it."). Children need practice in both. a affords the chance to literally translate an idea to paper, while d involves manipulating small objects.
8. Which toy can you never go wrong with?
a. Blocks of any kind.
b. Balls of different sizes and materials. (a basketball vs a soft, squishy ball).
c. Pretend-play props, from toy doctor kits to cooking and kitchen props.
d. Art supplies, from fingerpaint to clay.
Answer: All of the above. The more generic a toy, the more a child can use imagination. At every stage of development, each child should have a sampling of these in his or her arsenal.
*Price and age recommendations are from the manufacturer.
Contact Barbara Meltz at meltz@globe.com.
