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Fewer Toys Gives Kids a Better Quality of Playtime, Study Claims (nypost.com)
An anonymous reader quotes a report from New York Post: Toddlers with just a few toys were more creative and focused than tots with more choices, according to the study, published in an upcoming edition of the journal Infant Behavior and Development. For the study, University of Toledo researchers gave kids under age 3 either four toys or 16 toys and recorded their playing habits, according to the report. "When provided with fewer toys in the environment, toddlers engage in longer periods of play with a single toy, allowing better focus to explore and play more creatively," researchers said. Fewer toys "promotes development and healthy play," they concluded. The bah humbug-boosting findings may be one reason to skimp on the stocking stuffers -- but parents have another option. Simply keep more toys in storage also helps rein in the attention of scatterbrained toddlers, researchers said.
For the most part, our kids had more fun with the cardboard boxes the toys came in than the toys themselves.
Playing with a box encourages imagination. Playing with some intricate, structured toy just indoctrinates kids to fit in with societal expectations.
"National Security is the chief cause of national insecurity." - Celine's First Law
To include adults also... you know the saying -> The only difference between men and boys is the price of their toys
When I was a kid, my mind was my favourite toy. I would just run back and forth, sometimes I'd be an astronaut. Sometimes a knight. Sometimes a construction worker. Now I see 3 year olds glued to ipads... expect a hoard of drones to make up the next generation.
Also obligatory walked uphill both ways get off my lawn etc etc
To a point, the less choices people have, the happier they are with whatever they choose.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
I would like a study on why the scientists spend time studying things that are obvious to nursery school teachers.
When you have a never ending stream of new toys, the game is, "What's new."
When you have a couple of toys, the game is "Let's play with this and try not to break it."
--
Transformers, more than meets the eyes"
Overstating the obvious that everybody else already knew about for decades but millennials were too sheltered, entitled, and narcissistic to acknowledge or ask about, yet again.
We have twins who are almost 1 year old. Already now, we limit the number of different toys on the playmat. You can see them indeed focusing better.
I recently bought 2 bags of Megablocks by Fisher Price, kinda a Lego Duplo clone. So far we only gave them 1 set, and they are interested, not yet really building things, but examining the separate blocks, and interested when we put them together. I do hope that they soon start experimenting with building, it is good for creativity, spatial thinking and handiness. They can graduate to lego in a few more years
Happy that they are also interested in toddler books, they pay attention when we read them aloud. Some toddler books are amazingly well done (usually the ones which are not terribly educational but more empathic, like This is a Cat). A fantastic book I recommend for other parents is Press Here. Our kids are a little too young, but I had great success with 1.5 year olds with it. It is truly a book they will want to explore with you multiple times.
I'm forced more and more to multi-task, and have a wider range of choices to make in any given day on the job. This has increased the overall output only slightly - primarily because my work requires research to get to the bottom of many questions - and has certainly eroded the quality of that output immensely - forcing 2nd passes across some items that are in error.
I think sensory overload in all forms is a bad thing for human beings - regardless of their age.
Lodragan Draoidh
The more you explain it, the more I don't understand it. - Mark Twain
Oops, never mind.
Misread the headline as "Fewer Toys Gives Kids a Better Quality of Playtime, Santa Claims."
A toy presents a set of rules for play by its very nature. There are only so many things you can do with a toy before the object itself becomes irrelevant, and if you place importance on the object you cut off a whole range of free play.
Which, to be stingingly honest, is the intent behind the entertainment industry, including toy makers. It's a form of social conditioning. Not unlike what the 'SJWs' say about Barbies, but they are generally very lacking in their interpretation of the scope of these measures. The toys just don't enforce "gender norms", they enforce the scope of a child's very humanity by relation to their social role, regardless of gender. They enforce an extremely irrational subordination to authority, a la "these are the rules, you must follow them, enjoy, or else you can't have any stimulation, because there is nothing else."
That there is an object that play is centered around is not good. Play should be centered around the social and environmental interactions. A toy should just be any old thing that is lying around.
This is in order to stimulate all parts of the mind, all the instincts, big and small, that make up the human mind. Children need free play to stimulate the various parts of their minds and bodies proportionally and to develop good mental and physical health.
But when you raise children in urban/suburban 'pens', there isn't anything at all just lying around. It's a constrained, sterile environment. Unfortunately this is just something most of us just have to live with, not having the luxury of being able to move out into the country. So we have to be extremely, extremely careful about the toys we give our children and we have to go far out of our way to provide them with regular free play experiences.
To be honest, kids absolutely need a natural environment to play in. Fields, woods, etc. They need to be able to range around unsupervised. It's a desperate need, every single day, it's not negotiable except at the cost of your child's development. Your children will be hurt deeply without these experiences. Do whatever you can to provide this for them.
Check out this article, especially its references:
https://www.psychologytoday.co...
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Toy = bible
Then
Better yet, get rid of the bible altogether, read the Bible, and live in the real world rather than the fantasy one you are creating. None of your bible can give you the eternal life that Jesus Christ can. Repent, sell all of your bible and give the money to the poor, then you can be born again in Jesus Christ to attain eternal life.
If you want to spread religion, use religion-based reason and stop using logic-based reason. It was never meant to make sense with logic reason, and never will. Also, stop spamming in slashdot.
Indeed! Mix it up. Allow them to play with all of the toys sometimes, but limit it to 1 or 2 at others. "Always do X" is suspect advice. Life requires different approaches at different times. And visit friends and relatives often who have different toys, or just to play with other kids without toys. Tag is a wonderful game that requires no toys.
By rotating the environment, they learn how to focus when needed, but also how to handle chaos at times, which prepares one for jobs such as an assistant to a hyper politician who happens to have a short attention span. Could happen.
Table-ized A.I.
Take your kids outside, they aren't in the phase of development where interaction is paramount, they're in the phase where observation is! They need to see the natural world work. They need to see the land. They need to see plants, animals, streams, and weather. They need to see life and death.
Don't coddle your children in an artificial playpen where a great proportion of their instinct and intuition has no place.
Unless you WANT to sabotage them for some reason.
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The more toys you have as an adult, the less amusing they all collectively become. Duh. I gotta brand this entire post as totally obvious.
This really sounds like an experiment where the outcome is heavily steered.
Thinking rationally, a child will already spend much more time checking out the different toys when there are many. I mean, 16 toys, that takes awhile to browse through. With fixed time, it's pretty obvious that a child will play more with one of the 4 toys than 16 toys.
Also, nothing was said about the environment. Was the child brought in a new environment like a clean room where he encountered the toys for this first time, hence pushing him to explore?
Also, what is the definition of "Quality of Playtime"? The child making up elaborate stories and role-play? This all sounds very subjective.
Of course we do that as well. It is AND, not OR.
This is good information. i remember rowing up where i only woods for toys. this actually made more creative. Unlike having toys that are already made. this is good read and brings back good old memories. shout outs from https://www.identitypi.com/ team
Fewer Toys Gives Kids a Better Quality of Playtime, Study Claims
This is true. Purely annecdotal but my kids select to play with very few toys (out of the many toys they have, too many IMO, which I'm trying to get rid of.)
If I could do it all over again, I would simply select few quality toys (in particular of the lego or painting types). Dolls, cars, and stuff, most of them remain unused at home.
The war on anything traditional continues. Taking on giving toys to children, in an attempt to cancel out Christmas, another American & global tradition!
We used to do much the same with our twins. We'd pack up a bunch of toys and let them play with the other half. After a week or two, we'd rotate the toys around so they were seemingly playing with something new. It works really well when they have quite short memories. Now they're 4 we don't bother with that any longer. However, they're much better at finding something to do than when they were 1 (probably as well they can, because despite my best efforts, they do have a tonne of toys).
As for Press Here - I concur it's a great book. I'll raise you 'You Choose', which has almost no words in it, and just some very packed pages of pictures where they have to pick the things they like the best. Kids telling you that they want to be a horse rider in the day and an astronaut at night is kinda nice :-)
How do you measure quality? Fewer toys gave them more time with each toy, while more toys gave way to curiosity.
But does more time with each toy really equal better quality?
At that age, curiosity is how they learn - or rather, it's the only way they learn, adults with intact curiosity also learn simply by being curious.
Before you guys through a fit: Yes, I was deeply into Legos myself and built many a adventurous contraption with Lego Technik (whatever the U.S. name of that is).
However, developmental theory, especially in non-standard education systems, has it that the structure of Lego actually limits thinking outside or certain constraints and this is considered harmful for brain development below a certain age. No surprise here - Lego has strict limitations on order to be as "flexible" as it is.
I'd go so far as to say to much Lego and not enough twigs, dirt, stones and trees emphasises single-mindedness and limits proficiency in social interaction. There are some minute aspects of my behavior and social standards that I can trace directly back to me spending hours and days with nothing but Lego and too little in nature. My affinity for IT may also have to do with this particular aspect of my childhood.
The way we socially interact is very strongly linked to how we played and were able to play as a child. Brain research is unanimous on this. ...
One of the best decisions of my youth was to trade in my C64 for a racing bike and start climbing as a major pastime. And these days forcing myself away from the keyboard and into social interaction with non-computer people has, ironically, greatly advanced my IT career. And still is.
Bottom line: Lego and other highly "sophisticated" toys may be more harmful than you think and limit an individuals capabilities way later in life.
My 2 eurocents.
We suffer more in our imagination than in reality. - Seneca
Our consumer culture was never about quality of life, just quality of the economy. We are socially engineered to maximize consumption and being healthy conflicts with that.
Science like this which is common sense to many people still has to be suppressed (often just by ignoring it) but when this gains too much attention you can expect counter measures that make big tobacco look pathetic. It likely has already gotten attention and funding for corrupt science has just begun so we can expect counter measures within a year. We may never hear about problems the authors of the study are having; it's not always clearly heavy handed. Depends on who is handling the P.R. machine.
The scientist who found raisins were loaded with poison had hecklers smearing him everywhere he went. Attempts to discredit him as well. I only heard about it when he founded PRWatch as a result. I have met old ugly men professors who laughed at the prostitutes sent their way after they did something relatively minor but upset a local bigwig.
Since the summary doesn't tell us what the optimal number of toys is, I'm going to assume that fewer is always better. You might think that zero toys is as low as we can go; but we can go lower. The kids should make toys but not get to play with them. Negative toys! We have the perfect laboratory for this overseas. Those kids in the toy factories are getting the *best* playtime... unless the injection molding machine and the assembly conveyor count as toys, then it sucks.
...seems like what is going on here. Perhaps not having other options forces kids to come back to a toy or game that presented them with a challenge. I'm okay with this.
Social Media Handywoman at Texas Boys Balloo
The flood of useless games makes the overall experience worse? Seems legit.