Toys and KISS

The lass received a gift the other day that she and the boy have not stopped playing with since she opened it. It’s a construction type toy that consists of approximately a bazillion straws along with various connectors to link the straws together. That’s it.

So far, they’ve built a house, a car- with and without a passenger seat, a rocket and several other things that I’m not really sure what they were. One of the projects was big enough that we let them leave it out overnight so they could finish it the next day.

If I was asked by a prospective parent what kind of toys they should purchase their kids, I’d advocate strongly for wooden blocks, a box big enough for them to climb in, various bouncing balls and paper and pencils. That’s about it.

We’ve purchased many toys for them and we have friends who’ve done similarly for their kids. Most of those toys go unplayed with for long periods of time. Some never get played with. Thinking back on it, most of these toys were too 1-dimensional for play purposes or they were too complicated- taking too much time to setup or too much effort to understand how to play with.

Even something like Lego’s is almost too much anymore because the kits are so intricate. Those are best left until they get a bit older.

Contrast those with a cardboard box. Both the boy and the lass still ask for us to hang on to the larger boxes they can fit into. They can hardly wait to get their little mitts on it and make it into something.

Perhaps that’s the key- that they can make something with whatever they choose to play with. The easier it is to do so, the more they will tend to use the toy. They just take advantage of the opportunity to stretch their imaginations a bit.

Whatever the reason might be, “the simpler the better” seems to perfectly describe the dynamic.