Developmental toys serve a very serious purpose. These play objects help young minds develop and grow by teaching them life lessons in problem-solving, cause and effect, compromise, conflict resolution and sharing. These toys also promote fine and gross motor skills, foster imagination and creativity, and let children discover their independence and positive self-esteem. All of these skills that we rely on today as grown-ups were taught to us at a very young age, which is why developmental toys are a huge part of any childhood. But when it comes to choosing them for your child, you need to be careful that you get the balance right.
Many modern developmental toys reflect society’s yearning for technological wizardry, gadgetry and trickery. They’re full of sounds, lights, buttons, levers, and moving parts. They’re great fun! But while all of these different functions can be very entertaining, it’s essential you achieve some sort of balance by introducing more basic toys to your child’s toybox. That’s because modern toys can reduce the interaction a child has with them. Your little one can sit and watch the toy while it entertain thems but they don’t have much to do beyond that. If you believe in “learning by doing” then toys that make your child a spectator rather than a participant might reduce the educational impact of the play session.
In addition, toys like this can limit a child’s learning of cause-and-effect. When a toy makes a sound out of nowhere, or if lights start flashing without human intervention, then your child won’t learn which of their actions (the cause) produce the sound or lights (the effect). The best developmental toys are ones that require action on the part of a child. When children have to use their minds and bodies to make something work, instead of having the toy do everything for them, is when they’ll learn the most.
More simple toys will let them do just that. Building blocks are just one example of developmental toys that require a child to think about what they’re doing while they play. These basic toys develop a child’s imagination and make them employ problem-solving and logical thinking skills. To get something out of the experience, the child has to take charge, rather than sit back and let the toy do all of the work.
This is why toys like Lego remain something of a gold standard as far as developmental toys are concerned. At heart, they’re simply building blocks that ask the children to use creativity, imagination, logic and problem-solving to make something out of them. Of course, modern Lego now incorporates many high-tech features so there’s a combination of new and traditional, but it’s the “traditional” that will probably teach your child more!
There is nothing wrong with modern-day toys. In this day and age, your kids probably expect to play with something that mirrors the world they live in. But toys that challenge them a little more and encourage them to take part in the play session in a more active way also have their place. So when shopping for developmental toys, look for a toy retailer that offers you a combination of basic and complex, and your child’s education will be a much more rounded one as a result.
