Are Children given too many toys?

Retailers are starting to gear up to sell the latest generation of Christmas toys, but some campaigners are advocating a change in attitude. Do some Western children have too many toys, asks Joanne Furniss.


I stood in the playroom holding an empty suitcase. We were emigrating and could only pack a few toys to keep us going until the rest arrived by ship months later.

In went the Story Cubes - ingenious picture dice that inspire stories, drawings or full-scale theatrical productions. Both kids are "crafty", so in go pom-poms, pipe cleaners and paper punches. Next, a kingdom of animal figurines marches two-by-two into the case.

I subject the rest to an eligibility test before I transport them half way round the world from Switzerland to Singapore - has either child shown the slightest interest in the toy in the past month?




A selection of toys in Joanne Furniss's home
-------------------------------------------------------------------
An ancient game of Pass the Pigs passes muster. A bucket of unisex Duplo and then, after a tantrum, a second bucket of pink Duplo. At the last minute, I spot a "snakes and ladders" game that my son enjoys (provided he gets to take all the turns).

But the rest has not been touched in a month - and the shelves are still packed with dolls and jigsaws and trains and kazoos and knitted muffins and the emergency vehicles of several nations and enough wooden blocks to build a bridge to Singapore.

So why do we have so many toys?

Psychologist Oliver James, author of the parenting book Love Bombing, believes children don't "need" a vast panoply of toys.

"Most children need a transition object," said James, "their first teddy bear that they take everywhere. But everything else is a socially-generated want."

It seems we are keen to generate our children's wants - the Toy Retailers' Association reports that the British alone spend £3bn each year on toys.

TO READ THE REST OF THE ARTICLE CLICK ON THE LINK BELOW:


www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-24759728

SOURCE : BBC