Some Thoughts About Toys
An extended relative of mine made a comment to me recently that left me with the impression that she thinks I throw away all my kids' toys. I'm not sure exactly how she gained this impression, but I can guess.
My kids don't really have a big variety of manufactured toys. They used to when they were younger, but over the years I've realized that they don't play with them very much. Things that were designed to be used in one specific way don't seem to interest my children very much, and so these types of toys often end up tossed in a corner. I try not to buy these types of toys, because they aren't right for my children.
On the other hand, my children have a huge collection of Legos, which they spend hours and hours putting together, building cities, organizing communities and economic systems. Why do they like Legos? They are versatile. Yes, you can build with them, but the things they can build provide huge varieties of ways to play.
Because my children each have different interests, the toys they actually use varies as well. Hannah has a humongous supply of "crafting" stuff. She collects scraps of cloth, yarn, duct tape, beads, markers, whatever, and she uses them to create everything from unicorns to doll clothes to clothes to wear herself. When she was younger, she received standard toys like dolls, but I rarely saw her acting things out with them; rather they were models for her clothing designs. More recently, her interests have turned more towards movie making, drawing the images in Photoshop, recording voices, and putting everything together using various computer programs.
John has a stockpile of origami paper. He doesn't need a book anymore to tell him how to create elephants, cats, flowers, etc. He figures out how to fold what he wants to, and the possibilities are endless. It is the creating and folding that interests him far more than the finished product. More recently, John has discovered computer programming, and has developed programs for a tic-tac-toe game, battleship, and an adventure game. While he does enjoy playing these games, he has spent far more time designing and learning to make these programs than he has actually playing them.
Joshua has a supply of dress-up clothes which includes everything from monkey suits to a monk's robe, from a chef's hat to an explorer's satchel. He can find more uses for an empty cardboard box than he would with an action figure. He is always imagining and pretending, but he is the hero - not some character that a toy manufacturer came up with.
Peter also lives in a land of imagination, and he has a huge collection of stuffed animals to play supporting roles. When he isn't playing with his "friends" he is drawing the world as he sees it. Art supplies - crayons and pencils and markers - have become his medium, his way of expressing his personal style of creativity.
Another reason why someone might think I throw away my kids' toys is because I have a good friend named "Gunny Bag". When my boys' room gets to a point where I can't see the carpet any more, and after I have given them plenty of warning, Gunny Bag pays their room a visit while the kids are at school. He gathers up the stuff on the floor, throws away the trash - the crumpled and torn drawings and scraps of paper, the broken crayons, the empty candy wrappers, the plastic spoons, the scraps of yarn, etc. and throws them away. The things that belong in other rooms - the books, the writing implements, the dishes, the magnets, the Legos* etc. get put away in their proper places. The clothes get gathered and put in the hamper. Whatever is left is gathered up in a bag and set aside for a while. If my children miss something that was taken, I will usually let them have it back, but this happens very rarely. Usually they don't even notice these things are gone. After I've had it for a few months, I will go through what I have and make a decision to either return it (if it's something I know they used and enjoyed), put it in longer term storage (keepsake type things) or donate it. I consider this process a "reboot" of their room, a chance for me to find things that have gone missing, to return things that have been sucked into that room, and a chance for them to start fresh with a clean room. In all honesty, I do occasionally throw away toys that have lost most of their pieces, that I have found scattered throughout the house multiple times and that I doubt will ever be played with again because the pieces have been lost and/or broken.
*Legos are in a category of their own. Because all the kids play with them and love them, but they are so incredibly messy, they are a controlled substance in our home. Last Christmas, several of my children received their own sets of Legos, and as long as they kept them put away in their personal box, I didn't touch them. However, any Legos that I found lying around the house, or on the floor of their room when Gunny Bag visited were added to the family Lego box. (I can't tell who's is who's anyway.) This box is stored in my room, and the kids have to ask permission to play with them.
Do I throw away my children's toys? Occasionally. Mostly when they are broken, and who wouldn't? My children may not have a lot of different varieties of manufactured toys, but they have plenty to play with. They are rarely bored. If they don't feel like playing with toys, they can always read a book. We have plenty of those, too!
My kids don't really have a big variety of manufactured toys. They used to when they were younger, but over the years I've realized that they don't play with them very much. Things that were designed to be used in one specific way don't seem to interest my children very much, and so these types of toys often end up tossed in a corner. I try not to buy these types of toys, because they aren't right for my children.
On the other hand, my children have a huge collection of Legos, which they spend hours and hours putting together, building cities, organizing communities and economic systems. Why do they like Legos? They are versatile. Yes, you can build with them, but the things they can build provide huge varieties of ways to play.
Because my children each have different interests, the toys they actually use varies as well. Hannah has a humongous supply of "crafting" stuff. She collects scraps of cloth, yarn, duct tape, beads, markers, whatever, and she uses them to create everything from unicorns to doll clothes to clothes to wear herself. When she was younger, she received standard toys like dolls, but I rarely saw her acting things out with them; rather they were models for her clothing designs. More recently, her interests have turned more towards movie making, drawing the images in Photoshop, recording voices, and putting everything together using various computer programs.
John has a stockpile of origami paper. He doesn't need a book anymore to tell him how to create elephants, cats, flowers, etc. He figures out how to fold what he wants to, and the possibilities are endless. It is the creating and folding that interests him far more than the finished product. More recently, John has discovered computer programming, and has developed programs for a tic-tac-toe game, battleship, and an adventure game. While he does enjoy playing these games, he has spent far more time designing and learning to make these programs than he has actually playing them.
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| Josh playing his homemade "video game". |
Peter also lives in a land of imagination, and he has a huge collection of stuffed animals to play supporting roles. When he isn't playing with his "friends" he is drawing the world as he sees it. Art supplies - crayons and pencils and markers - have become his medium, his way of expressing his personal style of creativity.
Another reason why someone might think I throw away my kids' toys is because I have a good friend named "Gunny Bag". When my boys' room gets to a point where I can't see the carpet any more, and after I have given them plenty of warning, Gunny Bag pays their room a visit while the kids are at school. He gathers up the stuff on the floor, throws away the trash - the crumpled and torn drawings and scraps of paper, the broken crayons, the empty candy wrappers, the plastic spoons, the scraps of yarn, etc. and throws them away. The things that belong in other rooms - the books, the writing implements, the dishes, the magnets, the Legos* etc. get put away in their proper places. The clothes get gathered and put in the hamper. Whatever is left is gathered up in a bag and set aside for a while. If my children miss something that was taken, I will usually let them have it back, but this happens very rarely. Usually they don't even notice these things are gone. After I've had it for a few months, I will go through what I have and make a decision to either return it (if it's something I know they used and enjoyed), put it in longer term storage (keepsake type things) or donate it. I consider this process a "reboot" of their room, a chance for me to find things that have gone missing, to return things that have been sucked into that room, and a chance for them to start fresh with a clean room. In all honesty, I do occasionally throw away toys that have lost most of their pieces, that I have found scattered throughout the house multiple times and that I doubt will ever be played with again because the pieces have been lost and/or broken.
*Legos are in a category of their own. Because all the kids play with them and love them, but they are so incredibly messy, they are a controlled substance in our home. Last Christmas, several of my children received their own sets of Legos, and as long as they kept them put away in their personal box, I didn't touch them. However, any Legos that I found lying around the house, or on the floor of their room when Gunny Bag visited were added to the family Lego box. (I can't tell who's is who's anyway.) This box is stored in my room, and the kids have to ask permission to play with them.
Do I throw away my children's toys? Occasionally. Mostly when they are broken, and who wouldn't? My children may not have a lot of different varieties of manufactured toys, but they have plenty to play with. They are rarely bored. If they don't feel like playing with toys, they can always read a book. We have plenty of those, too!
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