Ep #17: How Toys Impact Your Child’s Brain

What do you need to know about toys and how they impact your child’s brain? Today we’re going to be talking about the role of toys in your child’s brain development. We’ll touch a little bit on how toys have changed over the last 100 years. And we’re going to talk specifically about three different categories or types of toys and how they can be used to develop character, imagination, fantasy, creativity, vocabulary and even skills. It’s all coming up next on this episode of the Raising Healthy Kid Brains podcast.

Welcome to the Raising Healthy Kid Brains podcast where moms and teachers come to learn all about kids’ brains, how they work, how they learn, how they grow and simple tips and tricks for raising the most resilient, kind, smart, compassionate kids we can. All while having lots of grace and compassion for ourselves because you know what? We all really need and deserve that too. I am your host, Amy Nielson. Let’s get ready to start the show.

I have a fun episode for you today because today we are talking all about toys. Toys are such a fun topic. Children love toys and they learn about themselves and their world through their play with toys. So imagination and fantasy are something that are only developed through practice and children get this practice, imagination and fantasy through toys. So one of the changes that have happened over the last 100 years is the quantity of toys that children have exposure to and have available.

And abundance, like familiarity, breeds contempt. When we have too much of something or we get too familiar with something sometimes we lose interest in it. And now children have more toys than ever. What’s interesting about that is even with this overabundance of toys what we’re seeing is that children are spending less and less time playing with toys. And we’ll talk a little bit about why that is. And then we’re also going to talk about what you should be looking for in toys, different kinds of toys and how they impact a child’s brain.

Another thing that we’re seeing that’s interesting about toys is that now instead of toys being used as a tool to explore their world and a way to grow imagination and fantasy, children are seeing toys more as a means of social acceptance than a way to really stimulate their brains. So first let’s talk about some of the changes of toys over the last 100 years and then we’ll talk about the three different types of toys and what you can do with them and how they impact your child.

So one of the things that we’re struggling with is that having too many toys all the time makes it harder for children to choose the ones that are going to actually stimulate their brains and that imagination and fantasy. Battery toys, we have so many battery toys now. And battery toys are so fun, they’re loud and they’re colorful and they do fun things and they tend to capture attention better. They’re more attention grabbing but they take up children’s time and they have very little developmental value.

So you notice, I think we’ve all kind of heard the story or seen that we give a child this amazing toy for Christmas or their birthday or whatever holidays you celebrate. And they open it and they are so excited, there’s this beautiful toy and then they end up playing more with the box than they do with the actual toy. Have you seen that? I have, or the wrapping paper or whatever. And what’s interesting about that is that box might have more developmental value than the toy itself oddly enough.

So another issue that we have is change in the sensory element of toys. Maria Montessori is known for talking about the sensitive period and wanting to use a lot of natural materials like wood and cotton wool, metal, those natural materials versus the synthetics to give children a really rich sensory experience as they’re playing with toys. And our toys now, you’ll see mostly are made with very synthetic types of materials. So that’s another change we’ve noticed.

Another change is microchip toys. So what happens when we have children playing with these incredible toys that we’ve developed that have all these computerized elements to them is that it removes children a step from their actions. What used to happen if children were playing with a Matchbox car or a wind-up toy or something they would become very curious about how it worked. And if they played with it long enough and looked at it and kind of got really into it and curious they could kind of figure out how it works. You could figure out the mechanics of it.

And now our toys work like magic because they have microchips in them and those aren’t something that a children’s brain can just figure out. And so when something’s magic you kind of stop trying to figure out how it works because it’s magic and you don’t have to know how magic works. So removing children that step from what their behavior is kind of killing the curiosity they had around toys.

There’s also been some changes to the social benefit of toys. So toys used to be really based around socialization into adult roles. A lot of make believe and helping children build comfort and mastery of their grownup skills and maybe to even teach manners, morals, all of those things. And as we’ve kind of moved over we’re seeing more of these superheroes or magical ponies. And the make believe, the pretend play that’s happening it has really nothing to do with the child’s world. So they’re definitely fun and exciting for a minute, children want them.

But toy companies seem to be focusing more on creating demand for their product, creating brand awareness and children’s need to collect all of a specific toy rather than meeting socialization needs. So kids will be really, really into, they want to collect all the My Little Ponies or they want to collect all of the Pokémon or those things instead of really focusing on toys that are going to help them develop skills and vocabulary and kind of getting into pretending play into those adult roles.

So let’s talk about three different types of toys and the play that is associated with them, how those develop a child’s brain and identity. And then kind of just give some thoughts around what kinds of toys you might want to be looking for, for your children. The first type of toy we’re going to talk about are character toys. Now, historically character toys were a thing, they were something that kids used to help develop a sense of self. Character toys were used to help children develop values and morals associated with the characters of the toys.

So for example they used to have maybe an Abe Lincoln doll or a Florence Nightingale doll. And they would hear the stories about this person and the character traits of this person and then they could kind of start to pretend play and try to develop those types of characteristics themselves. Now, one of the first kind of transitional toys, switching over from this to kind of where we are now is Mickey Mouse who was kind of just a fun playful character, maybe a little more branded, but also had some characteristics that we wanted children to develop like friendship and kindness and generosity.

And then we see superhero toys where maybe they have some good quality traits like bravery or things like that. But they’re tending to kind of separate more and more from actual live characters that our children can emulate and more into something fantasy type and unrelated from their lives. So are there still character type toys where we’re trying to get toys that help teach children character and values? I think there are some out there. I think they’re a little bit harder to find, where they’re not more focused on branding and they’re focused on a character.

American girl dolls for example I think are one that are very much built around this but they are quite expensive and are certainly marketed to more affluent families. I’d love to hear what character type toys you find. So if you like you can hop on our Instagram or leave a comment and let us know what some of your favorite character toys that you’ve seen out there are.

Okay, we’re going to move on to the next type of toys and the next category if you will, and that is skills toys. And skills toys are the most universal play things with the longest history. They require children to learn one or more skills to be able to use them. Historically they’ve been very gender based. They might be mini versions of tools that their mom or dad used. So these might be things like a toy hammer to pretend building things or it might be a baby doll and kitchen tools and toys to pretend cooking and caring for children, things like that.

I think there’s also this is maybe that category where you would find things like balls. There’s a lot of different types of skills toys. And what’s interesting is that even adults can benefit from playing with toys. In the architecture department at Stanford University, architecture students are required to play with erector sets because it’s so important for them to be able to play and build before they can design. And students that grow up on farms with machinery are apparently the ones that tend to come into engineering easiest according to the Dean of Engineering from Iowa State University.

Those kids that have played with and been exposed to and worked with those different kinds of tools or toys are going to have an easier adaptation into working with them or being able to build and create with them. Skills toys are some of my favorites. I think that they not only start building skills and helping children build vocabulary and adapt to the world but I think they also provide a lot of opportunity for creativity and building, which I love. And you’ll notice in a lot of early education classrooms, preschool classrooms, we’re using a lot of block play. We’re using a lot of pretend play, working those skills toys.

So this kind of leads into this third type of toys I want to talk about which is educational toys. I think we’ve kind of developed this idea that if play isn’t educating a child then it must be slothful. If toys aren’t educational then they’re not a good toy. So in the past toys were educating children with character traits, moral values, skills, all those things.

And we’ve kind of, I think, narrowed in on this idea that for a toy to be considered an educational toy it has to be narrowed down to this very academic focus. It needs to be teaching math or it needs to be teaching the alphabet or letter sounds. Now, there is certainly an argument we make for stimulating the brain during this time in a child’s rapid brain development. And we’re wanting to use that and help children learn quickly. However, there is a lot of pruning going on in the synapsis of a child’s brain. And so the complexity of connections is probably a lot more valuable than just the sheer quantity of connections.

So, yes, we definitely want to use playtime to educate. And we can expose children to lots of learning ideas and concepts and academic concepts during their play. This is something that we are obsessed with at Planning Playtime and kind of adding play into that, that academic development. But I think the thought here is to be aware of the types of educational toys that you’re looking at. And just recognize that you’re being marketed to and maybe take a minute to really look at the toy and decide the educational value of it.

So for example, if you’re looking at a really fun preschool toy and it only has one specific purpose or focus, children are going to tend to lose interest in that toy very quickly if there is no element of imagination, curiosity, sensory element, things like that. If instead you’re getting more open ended educational toys they’re going to leave a lot more space for imagination, curiosity and creative play which are going to be more likely to be played with more often and longer.

I love to have toys that I can bring out over and over and over again, that use them in different ways with different themes and different types of play because it gives my children that exposure to be able to use them and think of them in all kinds of different settings and scenarios. For example, our little family characters, or our little figure toys we can use in a sensory bin. We can start building towers of blocks when we’re doing a history unit. We can use them to do all kinds of pretend play.

And so children are using those same toys over and over and over again in different ways which gives them a lot of freedom to then create their own ways of playing with those toys. And so opening that space for imagination and curiosity.

I hope that was interesting and maybe helpful as you’re kind of thinking about the quantity of toys you want to have and the types of toys you want to have in your play area. I would love to hear what some of your favorite toys are that you have in your playroom. So leave us a comment below or you can head over to Instagram and share with us and let’s build a list of some of your favorite types of skills toys, educational toys or even character toys if you have some of those that you love.

As always, thank you so much for listening. Have an amazing rest of your week and I will catch you here again next time on the next episode of Raising Healthy Kid Brains.

Thank you so much for spending some time with me today and listening to this episode of the Raising Healthy Kid Brains podcast. We are a brand new podcast which means we are harder to find than the perfect LEGO in a big box full of LEGO. And we need your help so that we can reach more moms and parents, and teachers with this information about their children’s brains. So how can you help? You can follow this podcast wherever you listen to podcasts and leave us a rating and a review. That would mean the absolute world to us.

And hey, we want to make it fun because at Planning Playtime we are all about fun. We made a very special gift for you and your kiddo. And your follows, ratings and reviews are going to unlock different parts of that gift over the next few weeks. It’s going to be so much fun so after you follow, rate and review the podcast, head over to planningplaytime.com\podcastlaunch to find out where we are and how much of that gift you can go and get for your child right now. Thanks a million and I will see you on the next episode of the Raising Healthy Kid Brains podcast.