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.

A bit off topic, but MIL has a weakness for plastic bleepies (bless). We have wonderful after dinner games guessing what is listed on the side of the box as the educational benefits. "Introduces colour" is my favourite

Can I also suggest a wnaky BATH basket. When the DSs were smaller we had a plastic basket in the bathroom which we kept all sorts of plastic bottles/ sieves/ mini-cups (e.g. off polish cans)/ squeezy & squirty things - none of which were specially bought, all just 'household items' and they LOVED it - couldn't get them out of the bath.

Absolutely, Legacy. It took me about 18 months to realise that all the squeaky, squirty, musical bath toys I had lovingly bought for ds were a load of crap, and what he really likes is:

shampoo bottles, small teapots, cups etc, pots with lids, sieves, jugs, funnels, tubes, and tins.

A fantastic science lesson and you get clean at the same time.

F & Z, mind if i email you too for your document? Methinks you are starting a wnaky revolution here!

Message withdrawn

I think small world toys such as Polly Pocket are excellent for older children, and develop creative, imaginative, empathy and language skills.

I think hub is talking about plastic beepy crap for little ones. I know I am.

Astrophe (and any lurkers) please do email me - I am honestly delighted to share this informations with anyone who is interested. If there is a wnaky revolution I am going to be leading the way in a Boudiccan sort of style

oooh... she rode topless, right ?

Message withdrawn

She was a bit mad and fierce and she had mud in her hair. Or something.

Happy to say, we own NO plastic shit that beeps as toys. Both girls are more than capable of finding ways to make noise w/o them.

Cat, please do email me, anyone who wants to know more is welcome to contact me. No reason why you should know what I do - I run toddler music and movement groups and also baby heuristic play sessions. Your work sounds very interesting - maybe you could let me know a bit more?

i'm a lurker.....can i have the document too?

Yup, just CAT me or email me

frannyandzooey at india dot com

all welcome

dd1+2 had loads of plastic rubbish as babies. in fact their toys are still packed up in the cupboard and dd3 hasnt seen them at all. dd3 likes soft toys to cuddle, building blocks, balls, dd2's toy kitchen (especially the cups lol), phones(old mobiles come in handy, batteries removed of course), bit of old fabric or a square of terry towelling (she put this over her head and goes 'whoooooo' or round the back of her neck like a boxer lol)hairbrushes etc. she3 does have roll-a-rounds and peek-a-blocks.

They used treasure baskets at ds's nursery when he was tiny. On the occasions when I turned up while they were out, the babies were absorbed.

Has anyone mentioned socks, btw? Make great hand puppets.

mine us]e socks all the time

I am in process of putting my treasure basket together although my LO's are older but my ds especially (nearly 2) is loving it ! does this mean i can wait till they are in bed and pack up all this annoying, irritating, mess making, horrid colours that dont go with my decor, battery requiring, stuff? sorry got a bit carried away there

Just noticed the plastic v. wooden till debate - am with the kids on this one. Ds's plastic till (present) is fab and he plays with it for hours. You can swipe pretend credit cards, make the keys go 'ching' and open the drawer, and make the bar code scanner go beep. He gets the (plastic) food out of his (plastic) kitchen and gets really into it. Even I like playing with it!

Mind you, he didn't get this until he was 2.5 so it doesn't really affect FaZs argument.

Hello Oh Great Bark Sucking One - so glad to see more converts, though I'm a little to see you have 'new' head disciples...sniff. But tis all to the greater good

I am unveiling my first treasure basket attempt at the special mums group I help run on Tuesday and although I know the children will love it I am a little nervous about how to 'sell' it to some of the mums (some of whom, it must be said are dedicated followers of the Great Froot Shoot IFKWIM)
Some of them complained when I remove the beepy toys out of the basket out of politeness to a guest speaker we had in, so you can imagine how well bark sucking may go down .
However, there are 4 or 5 mums who have expressed great enthusiasm, and have even contributed some items.

Franny - or anyone else - can you help me think of a non-wnacky, tactful spiel to introduce the session? Without implying that plastic toys are 'wrong'? These mums are a bit vulnerable and there has to be no suggestion of criticism of any particular style of parenting - and that includes choice of toys!

Message withdrawn

"As ds / dd was allergic to batteries we had to find other stuff s/he could play with, so we came up with this pile of wnak..."

Message withdrawn

Fullmoonfiend sorry about the new Head Disciple and all that. I thought you had left the fold, you had gone a bit quiet (and you didn't send your £200 cult membership subs last month )

To introduce the wnaky baskets, I often use the exercise described in my handout - get two drawstring bags and fill one with plastic beepy shit and one with the most tactile treasure basket items you can find. Pass the two bags around and ask the participants to imagine themselves into a baby's skin and pretend they are exploring the objects for the first time. Remind them that babies make sense of the world very much more with their sense of touch, smell and taste than we do - which is why the objects are hidden in bags - adults rely almost entirely on their sense of sight to appraise an object but a baby will stroke, suck, lick and sniff to find out about the world.

Ask them to compare the sensory experience offered by the two bags. The plastic items all feel the same, and smell pretty horrid. The treasure basket items feel fascinating and stimulating.

Then I just explain the items selected have been chosen to offer a rich sensory experience to the babies, and then let the babies play with them. The children usually do the bulk of my job of convincing people because they are so ruddy absorbed and contented

We've made discussion of the day.... but now I'm worried about about all the people who gave us plastic beepy stuff for dd's brithday several weeks ago...

Honestly, she enjoys playing with them....

Franny, you've inspired me! I've always felt vaguely guilty that I'm not very interested in ds's extensive toy collection and prefer his bark-based activities. My personal bugbear isn't the plastic tat but the beautiful, crafted, handmade-by-artisans wooden toy that falls apart after two minutes with an enthusiastic toddler. Hmm, not that I want to sound ungrateful...