How to Avoid “Toy Overload” During the Holidays

Choosing Toys that Keep Kids Interested and Engaged

If your family includes gift giving in your celebration of the holidays, you are probably familiar with the wildly enthusiastic reaction kids have when they see piles of brightly wrapped packages waiting to be opened. Those moments of hyper-charged anticipation when excited children can barely contain themselves add to the holiday magic for many families.

Yet many of those same families experience a let-down after all the gifts are unwrapped and all the must-have toys are assembled and filled with the required number of size AA batteries. The same child who asked over and over for that heavily advertised ultra-popular toy plays with it for a while, and then quickly loses interest.

Is there any antidote to this pattern? How can we keep children from desperately wanting particular toys, only to get bored by them within hours or days of unwrapping them?

Fortunately, there are ways to avoid what I call ‘toy overload’. The solution starts with changing the focus when you are selecting toys for a child. It’s not about what advertising has convinced the child he or she must have. It’s about thoughtfully selecting a product that fits the child’s developmental level and true interests. If the toy is a good fit with strong play value, it won’t end up in the play-with-it-once pile at the bottom of the toy box.

Playing for Keeps, a national not-for-profit organization dedicated to promoting healthy play, offers several suggestions for choosing toys that can hold a child’s attention.

• Focus on the play, not the toy. Rather than evaluating the features of the toy, think about the features of the play that the toy will encourage. Said another way, good play — and the likelihood that a child will maintain interest in a toy — is about what the child can do with the toy, not what the toy can do.
• Find products that let kids make up the story. Look for toys that leave room for the child to use her imagination. Though it may seem to adults that electronic gadgetry in a toy or connection with a television character makes it more fun, often the opposite is true. Toys with minimal “bells and whistles” engage a child more fully because she gets to make things up—the story, the play routine, the sounds, the movement and more. What child doesn’t like that?
• Give gifts that foster different types of play. When you are shopping for holiday gifts, think about assembling a group of toys that offer a “balanced diet of play” that will encourage a child to use and explore all parts of himself: his developing muscles—both the large running around ones and climbing ones and the smaller, more refined hand muscles; his brain; his growing speech and language skills; and his ability to play well with others, to be compassionate, and to solve problems.
• Consider limiting television, especially around the holidays. Time for free play is a wonderful and healthy alternative to television and by avoiding its constant barrage of advertising, parents can help control the holiday “gimme’s.” Many communities have an array of fun family-oriented activities around the holidays that can also divert children from focusing on the toy of the moment—and keep them more open to more engaging play materials that fit their developmental levels.

Be sensible about how you manage toys that come into your home. If kids have too many toys, of course they won’t play with all of them. For starters, they won’t have time. So consider giving them fewer this season…and perhaps diverting some of those dollars to buying toys for disadvantaged children.

Another strategy is to put some of the holiday gifts away so kids can focus on fewer toys at a time. Pick out two or three toys to leave out, and stash the rest in storage. Based on your child’s interest level, rotate the toys so that you put one or two away and bring out one or two fresh ones every couple of weeks. It extends the play value of the toys…and you can make the holiday joy last for several months.

Tookie’s Toys is a family owned and operated toy reseller with stores in Raleigh, NC and online at www.tookiestoys.com. Owner Katherine “Tookie” Hodges has over twenty years experience matching toys and playthings with the developmental needs of children. She and her husband John get assistance testing toys from their almost three year old son, Taylor. To get Katherine and her staff’s help learning more about play, visit their website www.tookiestoys.com for contact information.