I’ve been reading The Power of Play: Learning What Comes Naturally, and I absolutely love the messages regarding imaginative play. The author, David Elkind, discusses a number of contemporary issues with children’s play including a general lack of undirected, unstructured, imaginative play. Our contemporary society is one that’s obsessed with learning, staying in front of the curve, and filling every moment with something productive. It’s almost as if we feel that every toy needs to serve a specific educational niche if we’re to raise mentally capable individuals. The author further outlines our modern-day dilemma by describing the changes that have evolved around increasingly available technology. Technology-based toys abound, and they’re marketed in a way that leads parents to believe that our children will be soaking up vast seas of knowledge when engaged with these past times. But is that really the case?
Excess Toys Impede Imaginative Play
Elkind argues that overabundance of toys, especially technology-based toys, create limited opportunities for the expression of the imagination, and it’s imaginative play that truly helps a child’s brain learn and develop. His argument makes perfect sense. Children have such a vast array of toys that they often jump from one toy to the next without truly engaging with that toy. In contrast, having only a few select toys forces a child to engage in a more creative way, thus helping to develop an imagination and facilitate learning. Elkind further states that technology-based toys provide the fewest opportunities for imagination, since the function is already pre-determined. The bottom line is that less is actually more (and better) when it comes to the quantity of toys.
Imaginative play is linked back to a child’s (or adult’s) innate desire to participate in work, play and love. Ever wonder why children love to play with real household items? Give them a colander, a pot, a mixing spoon and some empty spice bottles, and you have some pretty psyched kids on your hand. Give them a teddy bear and well, there’s only so much they can do. Engagement with everyday items allows a child to learn how to work, and Elkind argues that this form of play represents immense psychological benefit. Children love to pretend that they’re mimicking adults. My son and I spent a half hour hammering scrap pieces of wood together and I’m pretty sure he could’ve done this all day. Give him a hatchet and he slowly pecks away at whatever piece of wood is lying around. Work and play are often interchangeable at such a young age.
Love, work, and play are three inborn drives that power human thought and action through the life cycle. Play is our need to adapt the world to ourselves and create new learning experiences…. Loving is our disposition to express our desires, feelings, and emotions…. Work is our disposition to adapt to the demands of the physical and social worlds. Initially play, work and love function together as a single disposition. During the course of development, however, play, love, and work become increasingly separated and individuated, and the role of these drives changes over time.
Elkind discusses developmental changes that occur overtime such as middle school socialization that represents the peak of “love.” Middle schoolers need nothing more than to engage with one and other, and at this particular stage in life, that’s all they need for learning. Perhaps the middle school years would be better spent at a dance or on group hikes rather than in the classroom. Either way, what became apparent to me by reading Elkind’s book was that hands down, my children have far too many toys. My son is happiest when he’s outside creating his own toys from objects that he finds in the outdoors (or pecking away with a hatchet). Why is it then, that I felt the need to fill our home with toys in order to create a fun environment?
What To Do
You may have read my previous post, The Unburdened Minimalist Life in which I discuss my new found love of household purging. I also described my desire to declutter my home last year. And as you may have guessed, I took Elkind’s words to heart as I went through our toys in attempt to simplify my life and rid ourselves of clutter. So, what started out as a project to minimize, soon evolved into a project to promote healthier play time in the home.
I cleared out most toys a few weeks ago and while I can’t say that I’ve noticed any immediate improvements in my four year old son’s learning (he’s still struggling with calculus, what the heck?), I have noticed a tremendous improvement in everyone’s attitude regarding our home. Rather than a cluttered mess, our house is now more of a blank slate, ready for whatever activity we choose to engage in. We’re spending far less time cleaning, which is allowing more time for other activities. I also feel good about my decision to drastically limit the number of toys in our home since we had serious excess; it feels liberating to be free of that tremendous burden.
I encourage each of you to do some serious soul searching and look at your children’s toy selection objectively. Do you have excess? Can you downsize? How will a reduction in toys serve you for the best? Why are you holding on to all of this excess? And most importantly, how are these toys affecting your children’s ability to engage?
I’m all about achieving a healthy life and we all need to embrace the fact that it’s going to take more than just grass fed beef and leafy greens to get us where we want to be. We need to simplify and drastically reduce unnecessary obligations and responsibilities to make more time for health-promoting activities. And besides, I don’t want to raise dumb children who are incapable of using their imagination. I want kids that are interesting, imaginative, creative, and capable. I want kids that are taught the true value of stuff, and that excess only complicates things.
Be sure to share this post with your friends and I’d love to hear from you in the comments about your own toy struggle!
Leave a Reply