To think wooden toys aren't necessarily better than plastic

[BleepingSooty]

I was reading a blog where the author told a story about how she had an unexpected visitor and was worried because her son's toys were still lying out in the living room. Rather than be put out by the mess, the visitor praised her for being such an excellent mother for buying her son wooden toys. She then went on to list the benefits of wooden toys and how they last longer and have more educational value. She did make an exception for Lego.

Now, my kids are very hard on their toys so I feel somewhat qualified in this subject. We have had a mixture of wooden toys and plastic, cheap toys and expensive (mostly gifts) and I have to say I see no difference. The wooden toys break just as much as the plastic ones. We especially have problems with paint flaking off. I also don't get how wooden toys have more educational value at all.

I know I probably should have written this on her blog but don't want to upset her. And yes, her blog is a tad self absorbed but I love reading it!

The Lego and playmobile toys are the most played with in our house - DD has a beautiful wooden doll's house. Her 'taste' means that she has artfully arranged all the furniture, created small works of art for the walls, then very carefully does not touch it so as not to 'ruin' it.....

It did make me very happy to watch them playing with the Brio though...huge tracks were created, then playmobile people run over lots. Happy times.

My son loves both, plays with both equally. Seems a silly argument to me. I have solid wooden furniture but I don't look down my nose at people that have MDF and get all snobby about it!

I however, love the wooden toys especially a lovely wooden bus and fire station I saw recently as they just feel nicer

My children have a jumble of wooden and plastic toys (some of them inherited from my childhood vintage).

The only toys I really don't like, are the ones that are designed to limit play to one very specific activity. I'm also very about parents who insist that one toy is put away before the next one is got out, what if your child wants to use their lego bricks as food in a cafe alongside their toy tea set and a collection of animal toy 'customers'?

I don't mind either wooden or plastic toys. When DD was really small we tended to get plastic toys just because they were lighter

tower of plastic blocks falls over = funny
tower of wooden blocks falls over = yelling if any fell on her.

I like wooden toys because they are prettier so I don't mind them being on display in my house.

Also the environment thing.

But they bloody break all the time. Our poncy wooden pirate ship (wildly expensive) and castle - filthy amounts of cash - need reassembling every time the kids play with it. Tracy Island (probably 10 years old from charity shop) does the business every time.

My kids love LEGO - it's everywhere - it's plastic. It's ace.

I have a big issue with plastic toys because of the environmental factor.

I think there is an inverted snobbery on this thread that is failing to acknowledge the environmental impact of baby toys made of plastic.

My DD has both types and more plastic than wooden. They have been bought for her by family and friends or are hand me down's as I wouldn't feel comfortable buying so many plastic toys myself. That isn't to say I haven't, but more that I avoid it as much as possible.

That's why I think wooden toys are far better, not because they look nicer in my home. And they do require more imagination which is a plus as far as I can see.

I do love how easy it is to occupy my DD with a noisy, flashy battery powered plastic toy so I get why other's love them.

Ebay is great for second hand wooden toys.

Ld I think what you've said is the issue here.Some of these noisy,flashing"entertaining" toys are popular with some parents as they can be used as a babysitter.If you want kids to entertain themselves they have to have experience in doing it and this needs more parental input at times which isn't always popular.

I do think there are wooden toys and wooden toys though-not all are good for the environment or your dc's health if covered in dodgy paint made in a polluting Chinese factory which pays it's staff peanuts.

Definitely agree with your point about the dodgy paint etc..

TBH I hadn't considered that as, at the risk of sounding like a total snob, I buy the one's made in Germany.

Very expensive but worth it IMO. I get around the cost by simply buying far less toys for my DD than other's buy for their kids.

Children really do not need even half the amount of toys the average child has today.

I know I sound like a sanctimonious snob but hey ho, what can you do

Thank you! It's been really interesting reading everyone's posts.

Actually it is interesting about older kids. The bloggers kids are getting older now so I wonder how much longer she can keep up her no plastic, no character goods preferences. A six year old might be happy playing with a wooden train set but an eight year old might want something else. So, eventually she might have to compromise her principles anyway.

LDN I'm exactly the same.

We've had a lot of German stuff.

They just get less and we get less clutter and landfill.

Bleeping I sooo want to look at that blog now!

I prefer wooden or fabric toys due to environmental reasons. I also bloody love a good bit of Lego.

I also don't really care if people think I'm a snob for preferring one over the other.

Surely there is a potential environmental issue with wooden toys also? Rather depends what trees are used. Where they are made too, as already mentioned. Also plastic toys can still last a long time and be reused - all of DD1s got passed on to DD2 and then to charity shop. It isn't clear cut. The best thing is for them not to have too many toys, full stop. I don't think mine have loads compared with what I've seen in other people's houses I've been in. My 7 and 3 year old now mainly draw, make up their own imaginative games, play on the laptop or watch TV. They do like soft toys, Lego, Sylvanian families & dolls though. A big clear out of other stuff is going to happen before Christmas though.

Some of these noisy,flashing"entertaining" toys are popular with some parents as they can be used as a babysitter.If you want kids to entertain themselves they have to have experience in doing it and this needs more parental input at times which isn't always popular

I wondered how long it would take for someone to say that plastic toys = inferior parenting.
How would you know?

My kids have played with Playmobil, Sylvanians and Lego pretty much constantly for the last 7 years (they are now 6 and 9). All plastic. All long lasting. All stimulating humungous amount of imaginative play.

Wooden toys ... for the parents!!

Please could someone point me in the direction of noisy plastic toys I can use as a babysitter?

They sound amazing

Ha ha! Yeah - where can we buy the plastic babysitting toy?

I like wooden toys - my children differ though and love a bit of flashy plastic - preferably with a noise. DD2 just had her 4th birthday and we had an influx of shiny plasic with a zhu zhu pets set, assorted barbies and Ken, buzz lightyear and her current favourite Woody (fabric and plastic). We get a lot of toys second hand - Woody was from the charity shop and so plastic tends to be the majority. Plus a plethora of lego.

I try not to stress about it tbh.

My concern is more about the sheer amount of toys my kids have. If I go back to when I was a kid, I remember the toys from my childhood. I remember the amount of games that were without toys, outside with friends. The amount we had to improvise and invent with sheets, and pegs, and bits of wood etc. I think the way we play has changed so dramatically over the last two generations it must be affecting how we are socially and every other way. my DS got a den building kit the other week for his birthday, which was lovely, but that's what a sheet is, surely? All he had to do was put it up, so he had far less fun than with all the sofa cushions!
This Christmas I am struggling to come up with anything they would value. It worries me that it's so easy for them to choose the options where the toys has done the work, and the playing can be a bit mindless. The toy should be a 'sidekick' to the play, not the centre of it, most of the time at least.

Re wooden versus plastic, we have both. Nothing (not many) electronic and noisy though. I try to look at the play value, ie how open ended the toy is. Our favourite toys right now are brio, Lego, Quadrilla, art stuff, clay, slack line, treepee, bikes, wooden castles with plastic animals and dragons, making Harry potter wands.

Agree with posters who point out obvious diff between quality of makes of wooden toys. I worked in toy shop selling mainly wooden toys, and the American ones (M&D) are rubbish. Their ethical policies are awful, both from an environmental and humanitarian point of view, and the safety standards in American toys are not as high as with European manufacture. They are pulled up regularly for lead content in their Chinese manufactured painted wooden toys. They break easily, and have been poorly designed. But parents see they are wood, and buy them anyway. German made toys, metal, wood or plastic, are often the best designed and made. I'd much rather my kids had a few good things than lots of things they don't value. (and have to find places for in our tiny house). They don't need it, and I don't know why we all buy them so much of it, but it's the way it is. Roll on Christmas!

Not all plastic toys have lights and noises, there are wooden stacking rings and plastic stacking rings. Wooden stacking rings look nicer but the paint chips off and they mark your skirting boards with paint when they are rolled around, and hurt if hurled at your head. Plastic ones don't. Although they don't look as nice so not much use as an ornament.

Wooden toys can be as environmentally costly as plastic ones as they are frequently heavier and so would use more energy to transport.

A wooden toy made in China is no more likely to be dodgy than one made in Germany. All toys sold in Europe have to comply with the EN71-3 Standard.

I seem to remember hearing someone I know who is early years talk about it being good to have a range of textures for sensory exploration - so plastic, wooden, metal and even porcelain e.g. tea sets, or crocheted soft toys as well as fluffy/flannel. I think most people probably do have this range - don't think wood in and of itself is "better", it's just nice to have experience of lots of different materials.

Yes wooden toys are also v dangerous if hurled!

Greengoose, have you seen the National Trusts 50 things to do before you are 11 and 3/4? We are spending a lot of time doing this even though ds1 is only three so it is all heavily adapted but we have got out and picked blackberries and apples off trees and are doing a geocache every week. I feel that it's been a great inspiration to get out and about and not just be toy focused all the time and there is old world magic to the use of a high tech gadget that I hope means it will last for when the boys get older. So we will probably get a bike for Christmas.

Toywise, ds has a lot of character toys - fireman sam, Mike the Knight and Octonauts and I don't like the way he says he "needs" x or y that he doesn't have.. but at least for now he is playing with them imaginatively, with Fireman Sam rescuing Captain Barnacles from Captain Hook's crocodile etc. I think it becomes harder when they get older.

Quen they have a bigger carbon footprint and sorry I simply don't trust some toys made in China.We had some wooden trains recalled after the paint was found to have too high a level of lead in them.I think Chinese wooden toys are more likely to slip through the net as they're often sold at market stalls,have zero packaging,are cheap etc.

Personally I'd far rather buy a toy made in Europe by people with decent working conditions,European standards for impact on the environment,provides European jobs,has European design and isn't so vastly mass produced.

I may be a bit bias as I can only speak from a pre-school point of view. 3-5 yr olds.
But there is a lot of literature , theory and studies done on this subject , and wooden toys often come out top.
For a few reasons :
They do generally demand more creative and imaginative play , they tend to be less prescriptive than plastic toys.
Children actually don't like brightly coloured stuff , its a bit of myth, brightly coloured stuff distracts children from the actual use / purpose or intention of a toy and there for can lower its effectiveness as a learning tool.
The textures have beneficial sensory advantages. Many nursery's have things called treasure baskets for young children which are just house whole natural objects.

In terms of durability - we have a wooden fire engines its lasted 60 kids a day for 6 years . We had happy streets within a week parts of the track had snapped , wheels had come of cars etc...

To be honest the attitude that children prefer loud expensive plastic stuff is a load of crap. I've entertained a group of 15 children for half an hour with a cardboard box.

Less prescriptive toys do help childrens development . People like steiner , elizabeth jarman , montessori (done properly) Emilia Regio etc would all endorse this , and the new early years curriculum has a focus on creativity and critical thinking and this tends to be easier with wooden toys. You have to make them do things etc. rather than them doing it themselves !

Of course this is just my point of view from an educational perspective.