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<span style="font-style: italic">My kids have a playroom. I only had a cardboard box for my toys and these kids who are both under 3 have a whole room! 
Anyways, talks of decorating the playroom came up and hubby and I talked about giving the girls these oh so necessary items for Xmas.
A play kitchen
Train table set
and a fully furnished dollhouse. (They have a second hand one from their cousin but no dolls or furniture.)
Anyways I am just fearful of getting them accustomed to too much. In the next few years it will be video games and then cars for their sweet 16 bash.
Came across this article.</span>
<span style="font-weight: bold">Spoilt rotten: do our kids have too many toys?</span>
Kylie Orr
September 16, 2009
Essential Baby blogger Kylie Orr
Here's a conversation that's been repeated in our house lately, between my husband and our son:
"Dad, did you have Ben10 when you were a boy?"
"No, mate."
"Did you have Pokemon?"
"No, no Pokemon."
"What did you play with then?"
"A stick. I had a stick."
My brother-in-law enthusiastically unites in this game of hilarity, adding that he had a stick too but he had to share it with 28 other kids. Effectively, he had his stick once a month.
"It was a great day. "Stick Day" we called it!"
Our six year old wears a wry smile as he watches his dad and uncle play off in the competition of whose childhood was tougher. Humorous for me, given they're brothers who grew up in the same house. Our son is not quite sure whether they're telling the truth, finding it impossible to conceive they could only have had a stick to play with.
"If we were -really- lucky, we'd get to play with the dirt farm. It was a big pile of dirt that we poked with our sticks," my husband continues.
I'm waiting for them to add they had to wipe their bums with squares of newspaper and walk twenty kilometres to school. Barefoot. In the rain. Oh, hang on, they didn't go to school, they worked, right? In the mines. Great imaginations, the two of them have. Probably because they only had a stick when they were kids.
Amusement aside, the whole stick thing leads me to question why our children have so many toys. It's a fervently debated and heavily defended topic of discussion amongst parents and their parents. The older generation revel in the opportunity to tell the younguns how few toys they had to play with, "in my day". Admittedly, my husband and his brother are merely having a little fun but there is a message in the madness.
Do our kids need all these toys? What happened to getting a stick and belting a stone around the backyard? Or even better, getting a stick and belting your sibling. What happened to imaginary play where a costume could be fashioned from an old sheet and some stockings? Plain old blocks you used to buy loose - you'd take them home and build something - now come as a set with a picture on the front of what those particular blocks are designed to build. Stuff imagination. You can now buy it in a box.
I'm not on my high horse here. I'm as guilty as the next parent. My kids have a lot of toys. I'm sure a headcount of Barbies and teddies and inventory of Matchbox cars and Disney characters in any modern household would shock previous generations.
Books that could fill a library; puzzles and games that are sold under "educational toys" in order to appease our guilt at the quantity of toys our children possess. If it's educational, it must be worthwhile. Let's buy another. Our child will be the most brilliant kid in the playground.The fact is, that same child will be as brilliant as he was going to be had he been spared the foolish abundance.
Where are all the toys coming from? Apart from China.
Perhaps we celebrate more kid's birthdays with planned parties and that adds to the accumulation of toys? I don't recall attending many parties when I was a child. Maybe I was just a loser with no friends. I'd like to think it wasn't that common in the 70's to hold a birthday bash for each child, every year, rather than facing the reality that I should have been branded with a big L on my forehead.
This year, my six year old has attended at least five parties. He had eight children join him for his birthday. Granted, I could have said "no gifts" but explain to a six year old that the money we would have spent on a present is now sponsoring a child in Africa, or saving a whale. So the result is a $10 toy here, a $15 one there, one on your ear and one in your hair. Before you know it, we are buying more Ikea shelves to house all the new toys and allocating playrooms to keep some semblance of order. There are discussions about rotating toys and hiding toys so we can bring out new, fresh ones in six month's time when the children get bored of the ones they've played with for soooo long.
We could use the marketing excuse - it is everywhere. Even if you avoid commercial TV, if your child happens to socialise with someone who has glanced at a couple of toy advertisements or scanned a toy catalogue, then by osmosis your child absorbs all the toy products on the market.
Is more disposable income and less time to spend playing with our children the culprit? Working longer hours means less available time to sit down and play Monopoly. Perhaps a surprise toy the child's been drooling over may abate some of their disappointment that we had to attend another late meeting and miss bedtime.
Is it keeping up with the Jones's? A concern about having the only child in the class without an X-Box? Easy to say we don't give a fat rat's rear about what Jackson down the road got for his birthday but as our children get older, the pressure to fit in mounts.
It doesn't sit well with me that our children have an abundance of toys. What am I prepared to do about it? Not much. Many of their toys are hand-me-downs or op shop finds. Many are not. Some are gifts from family and some are gifts from us. Others are toys they earned through sticker chart rewards and some are items they saved their pennies to buy. Despite empty threats to the contrary, I am not prepared to ditch all their toys and send them outside to find a stick, and their imaginations. When they complain of boredom and nothing to do, I send them to their rooms to "find something to play with" and see them staring overwhelmed by their toys, not really knowing where to begin. "Read a book!" I bellow from the other side of the house. Even to my three year old. "Draw a picture!" "Of what?" my six-year-old asks.
As is common in many households, it is not the whizzbang toys that hold their attention. Our eldest son spends most of his out-of-school hours kicking a football around the backyard, commentating to a make-believe audience. Our one-year-old loves to play with the mouse attached to the keyboard and the drawer full of plastic containers. Our three year old? His favourite game is making circles in the rug with a stray empty toilet roll.
However, we will still buy them gifts for their birthdays, that will include a toy or two. They are kids, after all, and who ever got excited about a new pair of undies for your birthday? We implement boundaries by saying they only receive toys when it is their birthday or Christmas, or if they have earned them (by means of reaching 10 stars on a reward chart). Buying them a toy because they asked (even with manners!), because they fell over and skinned their knee or because they had a meltdown in the middle of the shopping centre doesn't pave them an inroad to toy heaven.
The age of fixing and repairing toys is long gone because it is cheaper to replace them. Doll Hospitals would probably have gone out of business, save for a few family heirlooms who needed some nips and tucks. But that's yesterday's generation. We are the throw away and replace people. Easy and quick fixes are on the menu of the day. I can't see it changing any time soon and I don't think I will be the one to lead the one-toy per child revolution.
What is imperative to me, is that our children learn to both appreciate and look after their toys. Quite a challenge to teach such core values when the $2 piece of crap that came free with a meal or was swapped at school for a gingerbread man breaks within five minutes of play.
As school holidays approach, I think it may be time to slap on the rubber gloves, arm myself with a garbage bag and donate some toys to charity. Perhaps teaching our children to give is the only weapon in our arsenal to battle excess.
Do your kids have too many toys? What are you doing to manage the abundance?
http://www.essentialbaby.com.au/parentin...4r.html?page=-1
Anyways, talks of decorating the playroom came up and hubby and I talked about giving the girls these oh so necessary items for Xmas.A play kitchen
Train table set
and a fully furnished dollhouse. (They have a second hand one from their cousin but no dolls or furniture.)
Anyways I am just fearful of getting them accustomed to too much. In the next few years it will be video games and then cars for their sweet 16 bash.
Came across this article.</span>
<span style="font-weight: bold">Spoilt rotten: do our kids have too many toys?</span>
Kylie Orr
September 16, 2009
Essential Baby blogger Kylie Orr
Here's a conversation that's been repeated in our house lately, between my husband and our son:
"Dad, did you have Ben10 when you were a boy?"
"No, mate."
"Did you have Pokemon?"
"No, no Pokemon."
"What did you play with then?"
"A stick. I had a stick."
My brother-in-law enthusiastically unites in this game of hilarity, adding that he had a stick too but he had to share it with 28 other kids. Effectively, he had his stick once a month.
"It was a great day. "Stick Day" we called it!"
Our six year old wears a wry smile as he watches his dad and uncle play off in the competition of whose childhood was tougher. Humorous for me, given they're brothers who grew up in the same house. Our son is not quite sure whether they're telling the truth, finding it impossible to conceive they could only have had a stick to play with.
"If we were -really- lucky, we'd get to play with the dirt farm. It was a big pile of dirt that we poked with our sticks," my husband continues.
I'm waiting for them to add they had to wipe their bums with squares of newspaper and walk twenty kilometres to school. Barefoot. In the rain. Oh, hang on, they didn't go to school, they worked, right? In the mines. Great imaginations, the two of them have. Probably because they only had a stick when they were kids.
Amusement aside, the whole stick thing leads me to question why our children have so many toys. It's a fervently debated and heavily defended topic of discussion amongst parents and their parents. The older generation revel in the opportunity to tell the younguns how few toys they had to play with, "in my day". Admittedly, my husband and his brother are merely having a little fun but there is a message in the madness.
Do our kids need all these toys? What happened to getting a stick and belting a stone around the backyard? Or even better, getting a stick and belting your sibling. What happened to imaginary play where a costume could be fashioned from an old sheet and some stockings? Plain old blocks you used to buy loose - you'd take them home and build something - now come as a set with a picture on the front of what those particular blocks are designed to build. Stuff imagination. You can now buy it in a box.
I'm not on my high horse here. I'm as guilty as the next parent. My kids have a lot of toys. I'm sure a headcount of Barbies and teddies and inventory of Matchbox cars and Disney characters in any modern household would shock previous generations.
Books that could fill a library; puzzles and games that are sold under "educational toys" in order to appease our guilt at the quantity of toys our children possess. If it's educational, it must be worthwhile. Let's buy another. Our child will be the most brilliant kid in the playground.The fact is, that same child will be as brilliant as he was going to be had he been spared the foolish abundance.
Where are all the toys coming from? Apart from China.
Perhaps we celebrate more kid's birthdays with planned parties and that adds to the accumulation of toys? I don't recall attending many parties when I was a child. Maybe I was just a loser with no friends. I'd like to think it wasn't that common in the 70's to hold a birthday bash for each child, every year, rather than facing the reality that I should have been branded with a big L on my forehead.
This year, my six year old has attended at least five parties. He had eight children join him for his birthday. Granted, I could have said "no gifts" but explain to a six year old that the money we would have spent on a present is now sponsoring a child in Africa, or saving a whale. So the result is a $10 toy here, a $15 one there, one on your ear and one in your hair. Before you know it, we are buying more Ikea shelves to house all the new toys and allocating playrooms to keep some semblance of order. There are discussions about rotating toys and hiding toys so we can bring out new, fresh ones in six month's time when the children get bored of the ones they've played with for soooo long.
We could use the marketing excuse - it is everywhere. Even if you avoid commercial TV, if your child happens to socialise with someone who has glanced at a couple of toy advertisements or scanned a toy catalogue, then by osmosis your child absorbs all the toy products on the market.
Is more disposable income and less time to spend playing with our children the culprit? Working longer hours means less available time to sit down and play Monopoly. Perhaps a surprise toy the child's been drooling over may abate some of their disappointment that we had to attend another late meeting and miss bedtime.
Is it keeping up with the Jones's? A concern about having the only child in the class without an X-Box? Easy to say we don't give a fat rat's rear about what Jackson down the road got for his birthday but as our children get older, the pressure to fit in mounts.
It doesn't sit well with me that our children have an abundance of toys. What am I prepared to do about it? Not much. Many of their toys are hand-me-downs or op shop finds. Many are not. Some are gifts from family and some are gifts from us. Others are toys they earned through sticker chart rewards and some are items they saved their pennies to buy. Despite empty threats to the contrary, I am not prepared to ditch all their toys and send them outside to find a stick, and their imaginations. When they complain of boredom and nothing to do, I send them to their rooms to "find something to play with" and see them staring overwhelmed by their toys, not really knowing where to begin. "Read a book!" I bellow from the other side of the house. Even to my three year old. "Draw a picture!" "Of what?" my six-year-old asks.
As is common in many households, it is not the whizzbang toys that hold their attention. Our eldest son spends most of his out-of-school hours kicking a football around the backyard, commentating to a make-believe audience. Our one-year-old loves to play with the mouse attached to the keyboard and the drawer full of plastic containers. Our three year old? His favourite game is making circles in the rug with a stray empty toilet roll.
However, we will still buy them gifts for their birthdays, that will include a toy or two. They are kids, after all, and who ever got excited about a new pair of undies for your birthday? We implement boundaries by saying they only receive toys when it is their birthday or Christmas, or if they have earned them (by means of reaching 10 stars on a reward chart). Buying them a toy because they asked (even with manners!), because they fell over and skinned their knee or because they had a meltdown in the middle of the shopping centre doesn't pave them an inroad to toy heaven.
The age of fixing and repairing toys is long gone because it is cheaper to replace them. Doll Hospitals would probably have gone out of business, save for a few family heirlooms who needed some nips and tucks. But that's yesterday's generation. We are the throw away and replace people. Easy and quick fixes are on the menu of the day. I can't see it changing any time soon and I don't think I will be the one to lead the one-toy per child revolution.
What is imperative to me, is that our children learn to both appreciate and look after their toys. Quite a challenge to teach such core values when the $2 piece of crap that came free with a meal or was swapped at school for a gingerbread man breaks within five minutes of play.
As school holidays approach, I think it may be time to slap on the rubber gloves, arm myself with a garbage bag and donate some toys to charity. Perhaps teaching our children to give is the only weapon in our arsenal to battle excess.
Do your kids have too many toys? What are you doing to manage the abundance?
http://www.essentialbaby.com.au/parentin...4r.html?page=-1
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