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Backstory
I could hardly walk through the room, for all the toys spread around. Looking at the broken plastic pieces, I could just imagine how much all this cost. But there was so much; it was overpowering. How best to organize toys and help children to appreciate them? We explore all that in this week’s story.
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Toy Library – #346
Have you ever counted the toys your kids have? A well-known parenting guru suggests that the overabundance of toys possessed by kids today is not a blessing. He claims that an average American child has 150 toys. Think what that means in a family with 3 or 4 kids.
Overstimulation from the media, video games and noisy toys are creating chaos. The way out is to weed out your kids’ stuff.
Reduce the chaos and introduce calm. Give away outgrown toys: discard broken ones and pack a lot of the rest away.
There are coaches who get paid to come into a home and reduce the abundance. They remove as much as 75% of the children’s clothes and toys. You can do the same thing. That will reduce the clutter.
Then introduce the calm. Set up a schedule for watching TV or playing video games, rather than having both run 24/7 at will. Get rid of noisy, flashing toys. They actually do the playing for the child. Instead, provide toys that challenge the child’s imagination.
Create a veritable library of toys, to be checked out, played with In those periods of calm you created, and returned. Sounds like quite an improvement.
P.S.
Toys Are Us just went out of business. One analyst said it was because kids would rather watch a YouTube video of kids playing, than play themselves. Playing is how we learned to imagine: how we learned to treat others; how we learned about the consequences of making a bad decision. How shall we replace those experiences in today’s world of busy thumbs and digital screens?
[Show #346]
Good afternoon Annette. I so agree with you… Children to have too many toys! Your suggestions are worthy to be considered! Thanks again for your message. Blessings and hugs
I know a household where they did the toy library. Remarkable results. Thanks, Cathie.
Jill Cornish sent an email and approved my repeating it here –
Annette – about a year ago, I was in. Local Giant Food store, waiting for service st the fish counter. An elderly May came up and said something about the lack of “service” in stores “these days”. The fish guys were at the back chatting, not paying any attention to our presence. Finally, the elderly man called out to them and they got what I wanted. He, on the other hand, was just there to “help” me!
We walked around the store together, chatting. Turns out, he was the founder of Toys R Us and the guy who created the giraffe! We had a great time and I was this close to asking him to join us for dinner when he said his aide was waiting outside for him to finish his shopping. He died a few weeks later and there were all kinds of stories about him in the paper. He was quite a character.
I have met many, many “famous” people over the years. He was definitely one of the most memorable.
PS – Jeff and I celebrated our 33rd wedding anniversary last night. Your column last week made md smile. I always thought it was BILL’S reticence to get married, not yours! Ha.
Jill
How about a story on our grownup toys??? Have a list of other titles to suggest…but busy doing other things. Life has changed here…will call you or e-mail you when know more.
Like the idea of grown up toys. We’re attending a Forum on Hoarding next week because we are so interested in what makes a person want to live such a disorganized and unhealthy lifestyle. It’s part of my Aging in Place initiative. Interesting subjects and major problems for some folks these days.