Good Children's Toys

For what exactly comprises a good toy for a child?

This year has been particularly trying for parents, as millions of toys have been recalled over the last few months, including many of the most familiar and best selling toys manufactured by Mattel, Fisher Price, and RC2, representing characters from Sesame Street, Dora the Explorer, Thomas and Friends, and Barbie. Many were found to have excessive levels of lead, a substance banned in the US since 1978 due to the danger it poses to young children’s brains and nervous systems.

In many ways, the recalls have overridden other important issues about what we need to consider when purchasing toys. Combined with the influence of high-powered marketing and popular culture, many parents feel too overwhelmed to make informed choices about what toys are beneficial and safe to their children’s healthy development and learning.

Since the Federal Communications Commission deregulated children’s television in 1984, it has been legal to sell toys through TV programmes. As a result, most best-selling toys are linked to children’s tv shows and other electronic media. Many of these promote violence, focus on sexy behaviour and appearance, and encourage consumption habits.

What is a parent to do to keep their child safe, not only from faulty and dangerous products, but from inappropriate messaging?

Thankfully, there is hope. By taking the time to consider your values about violent toys, sexualized images aimed at children, and the dangers of children spending too much time involved with tv, movies and video games, we can communicate with our children and those who will be shopping for our children what toys are appropriate and why we feel that some choices may be harmful.

What we need to look for is toys of value, ones that promote and enhance children’s natural ability to engage in imaginative, meaningful play by allowing them to try out their own ideas and solve their own problems.

Such toys support dramatic play to stimulate creativity, manipulative play with small play objects to enforce small muscle control and eye-hand coordination, and creative arts that encourage self-expression and the use of symbols. Examples of these toys include blocks, dress-up clothes, construction sets, lego, puzzles, craft materials, and game boards. For a detailed list of age-appropriate and beneficial toys, download the Toy Action Guide at www.truceteachers.org.

As for toys to avoid, the list is pretty exhaustive, and should start with a look at the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC)’s website, www.cpsc.com for a list of recalled toys. But for toys just reaching the marketplace, it’s important to avoid toys that promote violence, focus on sexy behaviour and appearance, and encourage buying more and more.

These toys include action figures associated with PG 13+ movies and television shows, dolls that are sexualized or focus on makeup and styling, make children dependent on TV or computers for play, or make unsubstantiated claims to teach academic skills to very young children, thus exploiting parents’ desire to be good parents.

Examples of these toys are weaponry, computers and videos marketed to infants and toddlers, and online gaming. For more information on how to protect our children from inappropriate messaging, visit www.commercialfreechildhood.org.