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Yes, so true! My wife is a Play Therapist with 2 masters degrees in the subject. The organization of a play space with limited and well chosen toys is key. Ad

Yes, so true! My wife is a Play Therapist with 2 masters degrees in the subject. The organization of a play space with limited and well chosen toys is key. Additionally if you give a child an electronic toy that lights up and makes a lot of noise and does a specific thing, the kid will usually play with it less, because they find their options are limited. Whereas, if you give a kid a wooden spoon and a pot to play with they can find a 1001 uses for it! She has a rule for herself to not have more toys than it would take to clean up in 10 minutes. Here is a talk she recently gave to parents at our pre-school. She talks about this issue at the 33 min mark. https://playla.co/talk/1 https://playla.co/talk/1

jerf 9y ago
Does your wife have a solution for convincing relatives to stop buying tons of electronic toys that light up and buzz for Christmas and birthdays?
- jv22222 9y ago
  Ah, the grandma effect... no, we have not found a solution to that issue yet ;) Well, I guess we let the kids play with those presents for the holidays they were given in. Then, after the grandparents have departed, the toys slowly start "disappearing"... We put them in a special closet that the kids still have access to. Every once in a while the kids will dive into that closet and rediscover some of the louder flashier toys. But, mainly, it's just the simple stuff left out on the shelves for every day access.
- thearn4 9y ago
  I've started a habit of sitting down with my son and taking them apart, screw by screw, piece by piece. He loves tools so he's into it 100%. The louder, brighter, and more annoying the y are, the more likely that they don't make it back together.
  - marpstar 9y ago
    This is an awesome idea. We have so many useless battery-powered chunks of plastic. My 7-year-old would LOVE deconstruction lessons.
  - kkylin 9y ago
    That's fantastic! I'll have to do that with my kid.
    - loco5niner 9y ago
      Make sure he makes it back together...
      - korethr 9y ago
        -edit- I just re-read your comment and the (great-)grandparent, and embarrassingly, just got the joke which I think you were making from some of the ambiguity of the original phrasing. That said, I'm leaving the rest of my original comment, as I think it's a point worth making. -edit- No, don't. If he desconstructs his favorite electronic toy and isn't able to get it working again, that's an opportunity for a lesson on how to take things apart without causing (more) damage, how cheaply and non-repairably many things are built (and the value of good design), how anything is repairable if you're cussed and resourceful enough (and when not to be), or any number of other lessons, limited only by your imagination.
        thearn4 9y ago
        for what it's worth, we do it for fun too, not just for getting rid of the annoy-a-trons :)
        loco5niner 9y ago
        Thanks for acknowledging my admittedly weak humor ;-) I agree with your points.
  - sevensor 9y ago
    This is the best idea I've heard all day. My kids have some toys that desperately need to be taken apart screw by screw.
  - honr 9y ago
    This sounds like a much better approach than our current "No V-Tech". Thanks for posting.
  - korethr 9y ago
    Sounds like the seeds of a young hacker are being sewn. Has he given off any signals about combining the pieces into cool new things yet?
    - elboru 9y ago
      That was the most awesome part when I was a kid, I remember the first time I played with the electronic components of an old toy, I remember being amazed about how a small switch worked the same way with a small led and with an electric motor, I was amazed about how every part could work independent from the whole toy, it was a really big discovery for me.
  - itissid 9y ago
    I used to take apart electronics in my house all the time, watching my dad and learning how to repair TV,toasters, VCRs etc. I was too young to remember how much damage or good I caused. These days I cannot concentrate on a lot of things, but repairing things is not one of them.
    - rjzzleep 9y ago
      i used to buy second hand VCRs in the thrift store(or something like that) nearby to clean the heads. It took a while to understand than by cleaning them the way I did I would damage them irreparably.
      - jacquesm 9y ago
        VCR heads are incredibly delicate. They are essentially coils of extremely thin wire held together with a little bit of resin around a tiny mu-metal core. Touch them from the wrong angle and they're already gone.
      - Double_a_92 9y ago
        Why did you do that? And how did you not realize that it broken after the first one?
    - skate22 9y ago
      My dad used to bring home broken desktop computers from work that were being thrown out. I would spend hours taking them apart, it was so much fun for me.
  - vlunkr 9y ago
    That's awesome. Next step: circuit bending.
  - TeMPOraL 9y ago
    That's absolutely brilliant and I'm going to steal that idea when I'll have kids. BTW., I just shared it with my cow-orkers, and the first reaction was: <<And so one day, you buy yourself a $1200 drone, then come home after work and see your kid smiling and saying "daddy, daddy! look, I took it apart all by myself!"...>> ;).
  - balabaster 9y ago
    This is genius! I know exactly what I'm getting my daughter for Christmas now! Thank you so much. You have just changed my entire life for the better :)
- nsxwolf 9y ago
  I love how the toys beg for attention now. We have so many things that after a couple minutes of inactivity will shout out one last desperate "Play with me!"
  - sevensor 9y ago
    Those are first on my list for disassembly per the sibling comment.
  - ksangeelee 9y ago
    This infuriates me. My son would move his focus to something else, and would subsequently be distracted by noises and flashing lights. It reminds me of 'attract mode' used in slot machines and arcades games, though I at least see that there's direct commercial benefit to this. Stealing my child's attention for no significant gain to them is plain wrong. Perhaps the commercial rationale is that the toy appears to be more popular than it really is, leading to further sales. Or perhaps the developers just had a few hundred bytes and a timer interrupt to spare.
  - dhosek 9y ago
    We nicknamed one of the toys are kids were given, "needy ball" because it did this. Fortunately, our kids generally prefer toys they could play with instead of toys that wanted to play with them.
- tcfunk 9y ago
  We just hide 90% of them in the basement, and cycle toys out as our kids get bored of the current selection. This will probably stop being a viable strategy once they are old enough :(
- empath75 9y ago
  I just put them in the closet.
- voicedYoda 9y ago
  Honestly, I just tell those relatives, “Thanks for the thought and lovely gift. In case you weren’t aware, we don’t allow battery operated toys in the house, so we’ll gladly let you keep [CHILD_NAME]’s toy at your house and when we come visit, they’ll be happy to play with it there.” It might not be exactly this, but we have spent over a decade training our relatives, and after 6 children, we only get clothes (win!), wooden toys (win!), and board-games/puzzles (win!). Otherwise, start asking for gift receipts or find out where they shopped so you can, “find something similar”...
  - dangero 9y ago
    What research shows that battery operated toys are bad and wooden toys are good?
    - new_hackers 9y ago
      I do not have any research. My personal observation and belief is: A young child (0 to ~3 years) does not understand electronics. The input output response from a battery device cannot be easily guessed from only physical examination, thus it is not a good toy to develop a mental model. I would much rather my child (at a very early age), form the basic mental models of the physical world so that she can predict how the world will react around her. Throwing a ball, banging a percussive instrument, stacking blocks. These all help form physical models of the world. What solidified this belief for me was watching my ~11 month old frantically pushing the button on a battery operated rocking horse she had received as a present from her aunt. My child could not understand why the horse had made noise before, but (once I took the batteries out) did not make noise. After seeing that, I realized that we needed to make things simpler before we made them more complex.
      - xtreme 9y ago
        I agree that certain toys can be age-appropriate while others are not. But a blanket ban on all electronic toys seems unjustified by this reasoning. (Parent said they have 6 children, it's likely that at least one or two of them would be able to appreciate battery operated toys.
- jqbx_jason 9y ago
  Send them here[1], lots of great options / they also explain why open ended play is effective for different types of development. I've been using the site for all my new nephew / niece gifts and everyone loves it. [1] https://www.roseandrex.com https://www.roseandrex.com
- DoreenMichele 9y ago
  Donate them to charity. Explain to the kids it is relative's fault for not also gifting you enough money to afford a mansion for housing ten jillion toys, but there just isn't space for everything. I also like the suggestion here to take them apart and use it as a learning experience, knowing that they probably won't get put back together in working order.
  - ryandrake 9y ago
    Yea, we do the whole toy donation thing at least twice a year, and have always done it so it's not weird to our daughter. Bonus is she understands that other kids will get to play with the toys, so she has fun picking out the ones she thinks these unnamed kids will have the most fun with. She now thinks that everything is supposed to be donated when you're done with it, which is kind of a cute and semi-healthy outlook (she told me that after we're done living in our house we should donate it to some other family).
    - DoreenMichele 9y ago
      It helps that they genuinely outgrow many of their toys during the early years. I was a military wife. I used routine military moves as a good excuse to cut back on the toys and other aspects of North American Affluenza. "We have a weight limit. We can only move so much. The new place will be smaller. etc"
  - badpun 9y ago
    Isn’t it a bit weird to donate to some other kid a toy that you consider not so good for your own child?
    - DoreenMichele 9y ago
      If you give it to Goodwill, they will sell it. You aren't forcing it on another child. Different people have different values. If that idea offends you, I will say again: I also really like the idea of taking them apart, knowing they are unlikely to get put back together in working order. So if the idea of donating them doesn't work for you, go with that. Or come up with some other solution. My comment in a forum in no way impels you to do as I said.
- bunderbunder 9y ago
  We don't have a problem with this. When our first kid was born, we just told everyone, "Toys that take batteries will have the batteries taken out. If taking the batteries out defeats the purpose of the toy, we will instead take it straight to Goodwill." We had two instances of people giving him an electronic toy anyway. Both happened before he had really developed object permanence, so he didn't even notice when that Christmas gift was gone on December 26. The giver (both were from the same person) remembered, though, and it hasn't been a problem since. She probably still thinks we're jerks, but most people with non-adult kids reacted positively and even said they wished they had thought to do the same thing. Obvs the whole "before they develop object permanence" thing means this probably doesn't work if you don't start before or soon after your first child's birth.
  - watwut 9y ago
    I have opposite approach. I am happy to buy electronic toys and anything else moving. Mostly because I liked them when I was a child and remember strongly wishing a remote control car or ship or transformer (cause you could change their shape, i did not care one bit about the movie). Dunno why I wanted them so much, but no one would buy that to me cause I was a girl and it would be inappropriate. My kids had remote controlled car before they were able to push buttons. For that reason.
    - nicoburns 9y ago
      I think remote controlled cars are a bit different to most electronic toys which don't move, and distract you with brights lights and sounds.
      - watwut 9y ago
        I don't mind them, really. Kids like them, my kids like noisy things in general. So if they are not expensive I don't treat them differently then anything else they might like. On some level, I find them cool too, obviously not as much as children. I honestly dont understand hate some people have against those things. Blinking and sounding toys have same future as old school toys - few chosen become favorite and stuck in bed, the rest forgotten in drawer or box relatively soon. No reason to fear them.
- skybrian 9y ago
  Don't put batteries in them?
- jacquesm 9y ago
  I have a very good solution: a garbage bin. It sounds harsh but after the second round of this well meaning relatives will either bring better toys or will stop giving stuff, everybody wins. Taking 'wrong' toys to the goodwill just keeps them in play and will essentially make them somebody else's problem. And good toys (which tend to live a lot longer than crap ones) too can be taken to the goodwill later on and then will make someone else happy.
- eitally 9y ago
  We create wishlists for each of our children (now with their participation). The overhwelming focus is on things that facilitate outdoor fun (sports equipment, hiking/camping gear, etc) or inside creative outlet (arts/crafts supplies, maker stuff, etc). For birthdays, we don't requests gifts, and instead share a donation link to our favorite local charity instead. This link, with a "no gifts" note, is included in party invitations, too. Just be open with people and they'll usually respond positively (in our experience).
- Will_Parker 9y ago
  On the other side of this, I'm glad my parents didn't listen to advice not to let me have a computer growing up, or I might be in a different career. The people who build the technology of tomorrow will be better than us at it, because they've been exposed to the technology of today, and internalized it, from an earlier age.
  - ben-schaaf 9y ago
    I don't think that's true. We didn't suddenly become better at building internal combustion engines because people grew up with cars. Just because you're good at using something doesn't mean you could build it. Race car drivers don't inherently make good engineers and professional esports players don't inherently make good game developers.
    - Will_Parker 9y ago
      > We didn't suddenly become better at building internal combustion engines because people grew up with cars. Are you sure? What about people growing up with cars, curious about what goes on under the hood from childhood, with references available on how they work, that they can connect to what they've seen themselves? Maybe this gives an edge over those whose learning started later? Human technology is a long ladder of improvements one generation makes over the one prior. It's not obvious that stone age toys are the best preparation for contributing to the next step of the ladder.
    - deleted 9y ago
      [deleted]
    - Spooky23 9y ago
      Lost you on that one. Keeping a car running is how you learn to fix cars, period.
    - balabaster 9y ago
      Start off by teaching your kids how easy it is to fix things. Involve them with easy things to start with and then gradually more complex things. By the time their 17th birthday rolls around (or whatever age it is in your country), buy them a broken car for their birthday. They're very likely to quickly learn how to fix it.
- wooyi 9y ago
  We do a book exchange. We tell all would be givers that we will not accept gifts but only used/new books. You come to our house and give one of your books to our child and we will give you one back in return. Works for birthday parties too.
- matt_the_bass 9y ago
  We’ve told friends and family that we only want gifts that are: - hand made, - consumable (this includes clothes), - or experiential This has greatly improved the value (in our mind) of the gifts. We especially like gifts that are enjoyed with the gift giver.
- JeanMarcS 9y ago
  Well the godfather of my son offered him and his sister musical instruments for their second birthday. Believe me, drums and whistles can be noisy too :-D !
  - nicolas_t 9y ago
    My wife gave a drum to her nephew because she was angry at her brother. Petty but effective revenge :)
- dark_ph0enix 9y ago
  I have a few nephews who got showered with gifts every bday/Christmas/etc, to the point where they no longer knew which toys they owned and no longer cared about the new ones they got for more than 5 minutes. So we (wife and I) had an idea. Instead of gifting them toys, take that money and put it in their savings account (one account per kid). We slowly managed to convince the rest of the immediate family (grandmas resisted a bit) to follow the example and now the kids have a growing savings account (which hopefully they'll appreciate later in life). With that said, we didn't stop giving them toys altogether, they just get a lot less toys which makes the ones they get that much more special.
- pwenzel 9y ago
  We asked grandparents for annual memberships to experiences in our city. For example a membership to the the Children's Museum, Science Museum, and Zoo are awesome and give us something to do throughout the year.
sandworm101 9y ago
>>> ... the kid will usually play with it less, because they find their options are limited. If we judged toys purely on how long kids played with them, Christmas would be just a pile of ipads. I don't have kids, but do watch in amazement as young parents buy toys less for the child and more to reinforce their theories of scientific parenting. The kid's brain will develop with or without the "correct" toys. Maybe confinement to such "play areas" is the issue. I don't confine my puppy to pay in a particular zone of approval. Why a child? My play area as a kid was 'the house' or wherever else I found myself.
- technofiend 9y ago
  I gave a two-year-old a wooden bike which came in a box. Through some non-specific English usage he understand the box WAS his gift. It was hell getting the box away from him long enough to unbox the present. Kids are remarkably adaptable and will play with just about anything.
  - tudelo 9y ago
    That is absolutely hilarious. Going off the OP above, I have a puppy and she loves boxes too, more so than anything that a box can contain ;)
  - timthelion 9y ago
    Why did you take the box away then?
    - technofiend 9y ago
      >Why did you take the box away then? To be fair his mother eventually had to take him away from the box to keep him on his feeding and nap schedule. He cried all the way up the stairs because he wanted to keep playing with the box. But his dad opened the box when the child couldn't see it and eventually all was well when he discovered the bike inside. It wasn't intentional cruelty as much as the crushing disappointment visited on any child that has to do what his parents want.
  - 9y ago
wslh 9y ago
> Additionally if you give a child an electronic toy that lights up and makes a lot of noise and does a specific thing, the kid will usually play with it less, because they find their options are limited. Whereas, if you give a kid a wooden spoon and a pot to play with they can find a 1001 uses for it! I want to add that I prefer an electronic game like Simon than a general purpose device like a mobile phone. If you play with the real Simon you can be more focused than playing Simon in a mobile device where they can quickly jump to any other app.
matrix 9y ago
The video is unavailable. Is there somewhere else we can see it, or better yet a transcript?
- jv22222 9y ago
  As long as you watch the video at this address it should work... https://playla.co/talk/1 https://playla.co/talk/1 ...it's tied to the referer of playla.co domain.
  - oblivion 9y ago
    The video doesn't work for me either. I go to that exact address and it says "because of its privacy settings, this video cannot be played here". I thought I may need to create an account first, but I can't find a place to do that. There is only a login button.
prbuckley 9y ago
Is there a copy of the toy category list your wife mentions in the video online anywhere? I would love to read it. Thanks for posting, very helpful!
- eitally 9y ago
  You can start by googling "Waldorf toys". The Waldorf educational method is similar to Montessori in that it focus on collaborative exploration (the pot + spoon example above is spot-on).
- jv22222 9y ago
  Yes, here it is: https://www.dropbox.com/s/8umprxhsidysno5/Play%20Strong%20Handout.pdf?dl=0 https://www.dropbox.com/s/8umprxhsidysno5/Play%20Strong%20Ha... If you are interested in watching future talks that she gives you can signup to her mailing list here: https://playla.co/parents https://playla.co/parents
atmosx 9y ago
Are there any books or resources that your recommends on the topic?
- dhosek 9y ago
  If you google RIE, there's a lot of good stuff in that community. I think that's where my wife picked up this bit of advice about rotating toys and keeping the available number of toys low.
snarf21 9y ago
So true. Imagination requires some disbelief. A talking robot can't be much else but a wooden disk can be anything you want it to be. It is a shame we so completely over stimulate kids and wonder later why they have attention problems.... Oh, look a new crypto currency article!!!!
eighthnate 9y ago
> My wife is a Play Therapist with 2 masters degrees in the subject. Sounds like one of those useless professions where you have to load up on credentials rather than accrue knowledge and skills. > Whereas, if you give a kid a wooden spoon and a pot to play with they can find a 1001 uses for it! Or you could let the kid go outside and play? > She has a rule for herself to not have more toys than it would take to clean up in 10 minutes. Amazing. Something my grandma knew without the 2 "masters".
- sctb 9y ago
  We've asked you many times to stop breaking the guidelines and post civilly and substantively, so we've banned the account. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
  - eighthnate 9y ago
    Why? I thought the comment was a joke. The guy claims his wife has 2 masters as "Play Therapist". That's like saying I have two bachelors in Computer Science. Don't you see how absurd that is?
nuna 9y ago
we have a ton of toys, but they are always organized into containers and cupboards. toddler selects one to play with but can't move on to the next one until they clean up, usually this makes them just play longer with the selection. do you reall have to limit the amount of toys, or just the way you play?

jerf 9y ago

Does your wife have a solution for convincing relatives to stop buying tons of electronic toys that light up and buzz for Christmas and birthdays?

jv22222 9y ago
Ah, the grandma effect... no, we have not found a solution to that issue yet ;) Well, I guess we let the kids play with those presents for the holidays they were given in. Then, after the grandparents have departed, the toys slowly start "disappearing"... We put them in a special closet that the kids still have access to. Every once in a while the kids will dive into that closet and rediscover some of the louder flashier toys. But, mainly, it's just the simple stuff left out on the shelves for every day access.
thearn4 9y ago
I've started a habit of sitting down with my son and taking them apart, screw by screw, piece by piece. He loves tools so he's into it 100%. The louder, brighter, and more annoying the y are, the more likely that they don't make it back together.
- marpstar 9y ago
  This is an awesome idea. We have so many useless battery-powered chunks of plastic. My 7-year-old would LOVE deconstruction lessons.
- kkylin 9y ago
  That's fantastic! I'll have to do that with my kid.
  - loco5niner 9y ago
    Make sure he makes it back together...
    - korethr 9y ago
      -edit- I just re-read your comment and the (great-)grandparent, and embarrassingly, just got the joke which I think you were making from some of the ambiguity of the original phrasing. That said, I'm leaving the rest of my original comment, as I think it's a point worth making. -edit- No, don't. If he desconstructs his favorite electronic toy and isn't able to get it working again, that's an opportunity for a lesson on how to take things apart without causing (more) damage, how cheaply and non-repairably many things are built (and the value of good design), how anything is repairable if you're cussed and resourceful enough (and when not to be), or any number of other lessons, limited only by your imagination.
      - thearn4 9y ago
        for what it's worth, we do it for fun too, not just for getting rid of the annoy-a-trons :)
      - loco5niner 9y ago
        Thanks for acknowledging my admittedly weak humor ;-) I agree with your points.
- sevensor 9y ago
  This is the best idea I've heard all day. My kids have some toys that desperately need to be taken apart screw by screw.
- honr 9y ago
  This sounds like a much better approach than our current "No V-Tech". Thanks for posting.
- korethr 9y ago
  Sounds like the seeds of a young hacker are being sewn. Has he given off any signals about combining the pieces into cool new things yet?
  - elboru 9y ago
    That was the most awesome part when I was a kid, I remember the first time I played with the electronic components of an old toy, I remember being amazed about how a small switch worked the same way with a small led and with an electric motor, I was amazed about how every part could work independent from the whole toy, it was a really big discovery for me.
- itissid 9y ago
  I used to take apart electronics in my house all the time, watching my dad and learning how to repair TV,toasters, VCRs etc. I was too young to remember how much damage or good I caused. These days I cannot concentrate on a lot of things, but repairing things is not one of them.
  - rjzzleep 9y ago
    i used to buy second hand VCRs in the thrift store(or something like that) nearby to clean the heads. It took a while to understand than by cleaning them the way I did I would damage them irreparably.
    - jacquesm 9y ago
      VCR heads are incredibly delicate. They are essentially coils of extremely thin wire held together with a little bit of resin around a tiny mu-metal core. Touch them from the wrong angle and they're already gone.
    - Double_a_92 9y ago
      Why did you do that? And how did you not realize that it broken after the first one?
  - skate22 9y ago
    My dad used to bring home broken desktop computers from work that were being thrown out. I would spend hours taking them apart, it was so much fun for me.
- vlunkr 9y ago
  That's awesome. Next step: circuit bending.
- TeMPOraL 9y ago
  That's absolutely brilliant and I'm going to steal that idea when I'll have kids. BTW., I just shared it with my cow-orkers, and the first reaction was: <<And so one day, you buy yourself a $1200 drone, then come home after work and see your kid smiling and saying "daddy, daddy! look, I took it apart all by myself!"...>> ;).
- balabaster 9y ago
  This is genius! I know exactly what I'm getting my daughter for Christmas now! Thank you so much. You have just changed my entire life for the better :)
nsxwolf 9y ago
I love how the toys beg for attention now. We have so many things that after a couple minutes of inactivity will shout out one last desperate "Play with me!"
- sevensor 9y ago
  Those are first on my list for disassembly per the sibling comment.
- ksangeelee 9y ago
  This infuriates me. My son would move his focus to something else, and would subsequently be distracted by noises and flashing lights. It reminds me of 'attract mode' used in slot machines and arcades games, though I at least see that there's direct commercial benefit to this. Stealing my child's attention for no significant gain to them is plain wrong. Perhaps the commercial rationale is that the toy appears to be more popular than it really is, leading to further sales. Or perhaps the developers just had a few hundred bytes and a timer interrupt to spare.
- dhosek 9y ago
  We nicknamed one of the toys are kids were given, "needy ball" because it did this. Fortunately, our kids generally prefer toys they could play with instead of toys that wanted to play with them.
tcfunk 9y ago
We just hide 90% of them in the basement, and cycle toys out as our kids get bored of the current selection. This will probably stop being a viable strategy once they are old enough :(
empath75 9y ago
I just put them in the closet.
voicedYoda 9y ago
Honestly, I just tell those relatives, “Thanks for the thought and lovely gift. In case you weren’t aware, we don’t allow battery operated toys in the house, so we’ll gladly let you keep [CHILD_NAME]’s toy at your house and when we come visit, they’ll be happy to play with it there.” It might not be exactly this, but we have spent over a decade training our relatives, and after 6 children, we only get clothes (win!), wooden toys (win!), and board-games/puzzles (win!). Otherwise, start asking for gift receipts or find out where they shopped so you can, “find something similar”...
- dangero 9y ago
  What research shows that battery operated toys are bad and wooden toys are good?
  - new_hackers 9y ago
    I do not have any research. My personal observation and belief is: A young child (0 to ~3 years) does not understand electronics. The input output response from a battery device cannot be easily guessed from only physical examination, thus it is not a good toy to develop a mental model. I would much rather my child (at a very early age), form the basic mental models of the physical world so that she can predict how the world will react around her. Throwing a ball, banging a percussive instrument, stacking blocks. These all help form physical models of the world. What solidified this belief for me was watching my ~11 month old frantically pushing the button on a battery operated rocking horse she had received as a present from her aunt. My child could not understand why the horse had made noise before, but (once I took the batteries out) did not make noise. After seeing that, I realized that we needed to make things simpler before we made them more complex.
    - xtreme 9y ago
      I agree that certain toys can be age-appropriate while others are not. But a blanket ban on all electronic toys seems unjustified by this reasoning. (Parent said they have 6 children, it's likely that at least one or two of them would be able to appreciate battery operated toys.
jqbx_jason 9y ago
Send them here[1], lots of great options / they also explain why open ended play is effective for different types of development. I've been using the site for all my new nephew / niece gifts and everyone loves it. [1] https://www.roseandrex.com https://www.roseandrex.com
DoreenMichele 9y ago
Donate them to charity. Explain to the kids it is relative's fault for not also gifting you enough money to afford a mansion for housing ten jillion toys, but there just isn't space for everything. I also like the suggestion here to take them apart and use it as a learning experience, knowing that they probably won't get put back together in working order.
- ryandrake 9y ago
  Yea, we do the whole toy donation thing at least twice a year, and have always done it so it's not weird to our daughter. Bonus is she understands that other kids will get to play with the toys, so she has fun picking out the ones she thinks these unnamed kids will have the most fun with. She now thinks that everything is supposed to be donated when you're done with it, which is kind of a cute and semi-healthy outlook (she told me that after we're done living in our house we should donate it to some other family).
  - DoreenMichele 9y ago
    It helps that they genuinely outgrow many of their toys during the early years. I was a military wife. I used routine military moves as a good excuse to cut back on the toys and other aspects of North American Affluenza. "We have a weight limit. We can only move so much. The new place will be smaller. etc"
- badpun 9y ago
  Isn’t it a bit weird to donate to some other kid a toy that you consider not so good for your own child?
  - DoreenMichele 9y ago
    If you give it to Goodwill, they will sell it. You aren't forcing it on another child. Different people have different values. If that idea offends you, I will say again: I also really like the idea of taking them apart, knowing they are unlikely to get put back together in working order. So if the idea of donating them doesn't work for you, go with that. Or come up with some other solution. My comment in a forum in no way impels you to do as I said.
bunderbunder 9y ago
We don't have a problem with this. When our first kid was born, we just told everyone, "Toys that take batteries will have the batteries taken out. If taking the batteries out defeats the purpose of the toy, we will instead take it straight to Goodwill." We had two instances of people giving him an electronic toy anyway. Both happened before he had really developed object permanence, so he didn't even notice when that Christmas gift was gone on December 26. The giver (both were from the same person) remembered, though, and it hasn't been a problem since. She probably still thinks we're jerks, but most people with non-adult kids reacted positively and even said they wished they had thought to do the same thing. Obvs the whole "before they develop object permanence" thing means this probably doesn't work if you don't start before or soon after your first child's birth.
- watwut 9y ago
  I have opposite approach. I am happy to buy electronic toys and anything else moving. Mostly because I liked them when I was a child and remember strongly wishing a remote control car or ship or transformer (cause you could change their shape, i did not care one bit about the movie). Dunno why I wanted them so much, but no one would buy that to me cause I was a girl and it would be inappropriate. My kids had remote controlled car before they were able to push buttons. For that reason.
  - nicoburns 9y ago
    I think remote controlled cars are a bit different to most electronic toys which don't move, and distract you with brights lights and sounds.
    - watwut 9y ago
      I don't mind them, really. Kids like them, my kids like noisy things in general. So if they are not expensive I don't treat them differently then anything else they might like. On some level, I find them cool too, obviously not as much as children. I honestly dont understand hate some people have against those things. Blinking and sounding toys have same future as old school toys - few chosen become favorite and stuck in bed, the rest forgotten in drawer or box relatively soon. No reason to fear them.
skybrian 9y ago
Don't put batteries in them?
jacquesm 9y ago
I have a very good solution: a garbage bin. It sounds harsh but after the second round of this well meaning relatives will either bring better toys or will stop giving stuff, everybody wins. Taking 'wrong' toys to the goodwill just keeps them in play and will essentially make them somebody else's problem. And good toys (which tend to live a lot longer than crap ones) too can be taken to the goodwill later on and then will make someone else happy.
eitally 9y ago
We create wishlists for each of our children (now with their participation). The overhwelming focus is on things that facilitate outdoor fun (sports equipment, hiking/camping gear, etc) or inside creative outlet (arts/crafts supplies, maker stuff, etc). For birthdays, we don't requests gifts, and instead share a donation link to our favorite local charity instead. This link, with a "no gifts" note, is included in party invitations, too. Just be open with people and they'll usually respond positively (in our experience).
Will_Parker 9y ago
On the other side of this, I'm glad my parents didn't listen to advice not to let me have a computer growing up, or I might be in a different career. The people who build the technology of tomorrow will be better than us at it, because they've been exposed to the technology of today, and internalized it, from an earlier age.
- ben-schaaf 9y ago
  I don't think that's true. We didn't suddenly become better at building internal combustion engines because people grew up with cars. Just because you're good at using something doesn't mean you could build it. Race car drivers don't inherently make good engineers and professional esports players don't inherently make good game developers.
  - Will_Parker 9y ago
    > We didn't suddenly become better at building internal combustion engines because people grew up with cars. Are you sure? What about people growing up with cars, curious about what goes on under the hood from childhood, with references available on how they work, that they can connect to what they've seen themselves? Maybe this gives an edge over those whose learning started later? Human technology is a long ladder of improvements one generation makes over the one prior. It's not obvious that stone age toys are the best preparation for contributing to the next step of the ladder.
  - deleted 9y ago
    [deleted]
  - Spooky23 9y ago
    Lost you on that one. Keeping a car running is how you learn to fix cars, period.
  - balabaster 9y ago
    Start off by teaching your kids how easy it is to fix things. Involve them with easy things to start with and then gradually more complex things. By the time their 17th birthday rolls around (or whatever age it is in your country), buy them a broken car for their birthday. They're very likely to quickly learn how to fix it.
wooyi 9y ago
We do a book exchange. We tell all would be givers that we will not accept gifts but only used/new books. You come to our house and give one of your books to our child and we will give you one back in return. Works for birthday parties too.
matt_the_bass 9y ago
We’ve told friends and family that we only want gifts that are: - hand made, - consumable (this includes clothes), - or experiential This has greatly improved the value (in our mind) of the gifts. We especially like gifts that are enjoyed with the gift giver.
JeanMarcS 9y ago
Well the godfather of my son offered him and his sister musical instruments for their second birthday. Believe me, drums and whistles can be noisy too :-D !
- nicolas_t 9y ago
  My wife gave a drum to her nephew because she was angry at her brother. Petty but effective revenge :)
dark_ph0enix 9y ago
I have a few nephews who got showered with gifts every bday/Christmas/etc, to the point where they no longer knew which toys they owned and no longer cared about the new ones they got for more than 5 minutes. So we (wife and I) had an idea. Instead of gifting them toys, take that money and put it in their savings account (one account per kid). We slowly managed to convince the rest of the immediate family (grandmas resisted a bit) to follow the example and now the kids have a growing savings account (which hopefully they'll appreciate later in life). With that said, we didn't stop giving them toys altogether, they just get a lot less toys which makes the ones they get that much more special.
pwenzel 9y ago
We asked grandparents for annual memberships to experiences in our city. For example a membership to the the Children's Museum, Science Museum, and Zoo are awesome and give us something to do throughout the year.

sandworm101 9y ago

>>> ... the kid will usually play with it less, because they find their options are limited. If we judged toys purely on how long kids played with them, Christmas would be just a pile of ipads. I don't have kids, but do watch in amazement as young parents buy toys less for the child and more to reinforce their theories of scientific parenting. The kid's brain will develop with or without the "correct" toys. Maybe confinement to such "play areas" is the issue. I don't confine my puppy to pay in a particular zone of approval. Why a child? My play area as a kid was 'the house' or wherever else I found myself.

technofiend 9y ago
I gave a two-year-old a wooden bike which came in a box. Through some non-specific English usage he understand the box WAS his gift. It was hell getting the box away from him long enough to unbox the present. Kids are remarkably adaptable and will play with just about anything.
- tudelo 9y ago
  That is absolutely hilarious. Going off the OP above, I have a puppy and she loves boxes too, more so than anything that a box can contain ;)
- timthelion 9y ago
  Why did you take the box away then?
  - technofiend 9y ago
    >Why did you take the box away then? To be fair his mother eventually had to take him away from the box to keep him on his feeding and nap schedule. He cried all the way up the stairs because he wanted to keep playing with the box. But his dad opened the box when the child couldn't see it and eventually all was well when he discovered the bike inside. It wasn't intentional cruelty as much as the crushing disappointment visited on any child that has to do what his parents want.
- 9y ago

wslh 9y ago

> Additionally if you give a child an electronic toy that lights up and makes a lot of noise and does a specific thing, the kid will usually play with it less, because they find their options are limited. Whereas, if you give a kid a wooden spoon and a pot to play with they can find a 1001 uses for it! I want to add that I prefer an electronic game like Simon than a general purpose device like a mobile phone. If you play with the real Simon you can be more focused than playing Simon in a mobile device where they can quickly jump to any other app.

matrix 9y ago

The video is unavailable. Is there somewhere else we can see it, or better yet a transcript?

jv22222 9y ago
As long as you watch the video at this address it should work... https://playla.co/talk/1 https://playla.co/talk/1 ...it's tied to the referer of playla.co domain.
- oblivion 9y ago
  The video doesn't work for me either. I go to that exact address and it says "because of its privacy settings, this video cannot be played here". I thought I may need to create an account first, but I can't find a place to do that. There is only a login button.

prbuckley 9y ago

Is there a copy of the toy category list your wife mentions in the video online anywhere? I would love to read it. Thanks for posting, very helpful!

eitally 9y ago
You can start by googling "Waldorf toys". The Waldorf educational method is similar to Montessori in that it focus on collaborative exploration (the pot + spoon example above is spot-on).
jv22222 9y ago
Yes, here it is: https://www.dropbox.com/s/8umprxhsidysno5/Play%20Strong%20Handout.pdf?dl=0 https://www.dropbox.com/s/8umprxhsidysno5/Play%20Strong%20Ha... If you are interested in watching future talks that she gives you can signup to her mailing list here: https://playla.co/parents https://playla.co/parents

atmosx 9y ago

Are there any books or resources that your recommends on the topic?

dhosek 9y ago
If you google RIE, there's a lot of good stuff in that community. I think that's where my wife picked up this bit of advice about rotating toys and keeping the available number of toys low.

snarf21 9y ago

So true. Imagination requires some disbelief. A talking robot can't be much else but a wooden disk can be anything you want it to be. It is a shame we so completely over stimulate kids and wonder later why they have attention problems.... Oh, look a new crypto currency article!!!!

eighthnate 9y ago

> My wife is a Play Therapist with 2 masters degrees in the subject. Sounds like one of those useless professions where you have to load up on credentials rather than accrue knowledge and skills. > Whereas, if you give a kid a wooden spoon and a pot to play with they can find a 1001 uses for it! Or you could let the kid go outside and play? > She has a rule for herself to not have more toys than it would take to clean up in 10 minutes. Amazing. Something my grandma knew without the 2 "masters".

sctb 9y ago
We've asked you many times to stop breaking the guidelines and post civilly and substantively, so we've banned the account. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
- eighthnate 9y ago
  Why? I thought the comment was a joke. The guy claims his wife has 2 masters as "Play Therapist". That's like saying I have two bachelors in Computer Science. Don't you see how absurd that is?

nuna 9y ago

we have a ton of toys, but they are always organized into containers and cupboards. toddler selects one to play with but can't move on to the next one until they clean up, usually this makes them just play longer with the selection. do you reall have to limit the amount of toys, or just the way you play?