Plastic beepy toys distract momentarily; toy manufacturers hope parents buy into this con. Discuss.

[hub2dee]

Babies and children have as much fun with everyday objects.

IMHO, plastic beepy toys are foul, homogenous, annoying beasts. They occupy children for relatively short amounts of time, before kids (of whatever age) move on to the next piece of similarly garish, sterile crap. These toys have no soul and do not allow true exploration nor the development of much in the way of imagination.

Crafted around a Pavolvian trigger and response concept, these toys serve up their rewards as blasts of noise, flashes of light or moments of fast movement. Their limited ability to sustain interest means that us parents need to relentlessly offer up the next toy to play with in a conveyor belt of stilted interaction.

We hope that by spending £10 or £20 on A Toy it will please and occupy our darlings, but ironically they tend to get the most fun out of the mundane and ordinary: The bunch of keys, the remote control, a dowel of wood. The toy industry is one giant con.

Or am I wrong ?

This rant has been inspired by revelations concerning Heuristic Play and things like FaZ's reference to treasure baskets etc.

I agree generally (doesn't mean I don't have a house full of plastic crap though) with the exception of construction toys, which although plastic, at least don't bleep and seem to endure. DS (5) has had loads out of lego & other connecting/building toys. Two other plastic exceptions = a small piano keyboard & mega sketcher. They've both lasted a few years so far

My MIL has made it a personal mission to buy the noisiest most garish annoying toys she can find. Aaaaaagh

Your not wrong, you are perfectly right..cant think of any chunky plastic noisy piece of crap that my dds played with more than 2 mins.
However, homemade farms and jenga bricks used for walls/pathways/gates etc have been played with for HOURS on end.

Wish we could have a worldwide boycott of plastic crap!

Yay glad I saw reference to teh wnaky baskets!

Also agree although we are laden with plastic tat from well meaning friends and family.
Franny said about treasure baskets last year and I got one for ds who is now 2.9yrs and still plays with his every day and dd[7mths] has just started to get interested in some of the bits.

Hear hear.

But what is a wnaky basket???

I agree too, although DD is currently pretty attached to a flashing musical wheely caterpillar thingy from Vtech . I didn't buy it honest, it was a pressie.

However DD is much more interested in taking off and putting on my flip flops or playing with her mini watford squishy football (blame DH) .

One solution we have found to some of the noisy toys is to never get round to putting in the batteries - at 13months, DD hasn't worked out that they are supposed to flash and beep.

Oh hub you are so inspired / inspiring today! And thank you for your lovely long bonkers email. Together we can storm the ELC and convert the population to bark sucking

The other nasty thing about the plastic beepy toy ,is that the mechanism to work it is hidden away, and indecipherable to a child, so they can learn absolutely nothing about cause and effect. A wooden spoon and a saucepan have infinitely more educational value, because the child can see exactly what is happening, where the noise is coming from, how speed and force affect volume, etc etc etc

wnaky basket is the unofficial term for treasure baskets

its supposed to be "wanky" but Cod coined the phrase

I like HC's phrase better

She asks me if I have "had a good time bark sucking today?"

(I once confessed during a crisis of confidence that I felt £3.50 was a lot to charge for a parent to come and watch their child suck bark )

LOL@ not putting in the batteries. That's even better than Twiglett (I think it was Twiglett) telling her children that when the battery runs out "that's it. Finnito". LOL

A wnaky basket is related to a wanky basket which is related to a treasure basket which is the term for a collection of bits for children to play with. I think cod deemed it a wanky basket because she is so bitter and twisted, but I understand she has recently Seen The Light.

So, if a talking plastic Superman toy would make my ds2 really happy......
I don't want to buy one because it is plastic, mass-produced, environmentally irresponsible and probably made by underpaid workers.
Should I make him a wooden one? Or what? He will be 5 in October so plenty of time to think about it.

Drop hints to your inlaws, TT. Then bitch about it and them once they have bought it

We have loads of plastic crap in our house. Not much of it ever gets played with, but we own it, and buy more occasionally.

tooticky I had to get my ds one of those as he had earned a toy on his reward chart and was only thing he wanted.

Actually, to be clear, I don't actually have anything against the odd plastic toy, or plastic per se (toilet seats, for example are qute useful), and personally, I'd have no problem with putting a plastic remote control in a treasure basket, although hardcore bark suckers might object.

I think also at 5, creative play inspred by / based around his superman character will become more likely IYSWIM. But for babies say 6 months +, who aren't able to run around singing "I am superman and I love Lois Lane and don't give me any of that green stuff cos it will kill me dead" (I know that's not very imaginative, but hey ho), the superman figure probably would do very little. A curtain ring, however.....

But would my over-active conscience allow it? Or am I potentially depriving him? How soon will they be in charity shops anyway?
Humph.
I did think, rather creatively, that I could maybe make him a Superman kite.....

Ooh, I am inspired now.

Tomorrow will be Wnaky Basket Day .

valid point about superman hub2dee as ds is 2.9yrs but runs around with the figure shouting someones in trouble save them superman...lol

actually tooticky make him a cape..I did that for ds after he had ran around with towels as capes..lol

He has a Superman costume which he wore almost constantly for a month. Thankfully, this hot week, he is taking a break from it.

I've a huge pile of plastic tat sat in the corner glaring at me, and all ds does is pull it all out of the basket and then play with the remote control.

So what goes into these wnaky baskets then? Trees? Twigs? Forests?

Lentils?

Right, DS2 is 6mo and I think he needs a wnaky basket. What shall I put in it? Does it have to be a wnaky basket, or would wnaky wooden fruit bowl-type arrangement do?

DS1 is beyond redemption, besotted as he is with plastic beepy microwaves... But he does play with his plastic toys for HOURS, so maybe he's the only child they appeal to?

I will play the role of the purist here and explain why I would not put a remote control in a treasure basket. Not that there is anything inherently wrong or harmful with plastic, or that babies shouldn't be allowed to play with it. But the treasure basket is a very specific activity with the goal of exposing the child to as many different sensory experiences as possible.

99% of all plastic objects feel, smell and taste exactly the same, and sound the same when dropped. Yet babies and children are mostly surrounded by plastic items and given plastic toys to amuse them. The treasure basket is an antidote to the overwhelming tide of plastic crap, and should IMO not contain plastic if it can be avoided. (I do use plastic-cased mirrors in mine because they provide a very specific sensory experience and are harder to find in wood or metal) Let your baby play with the remote, but don't put it in a wnaky basket.

There is an interesting point made in the literature I believe wrt use of a treasure basket as an activity in itself IYSWIM, Chief Bark Sucker (CBS). It is referred to as 'something to do for an hour or two' IYSWIM... obviously most people just have their acres of plastic shite spred around the room and ALWAYS available... Tell me, CBS: do you have the treasure basket out all the time or only when you're, erm, playing with it ?