A Comprehensive Guide to Buying Children's Toys
By Brad ~ Children's Toys
So you want to buy an educational toy
for your child. By now you've probably browsed through a few
catalogues, walked through the toy isle at the local department store
or done a little research online, to maybe you've done all
three. But
everywhere you've looked, they're all claiming that they are the best
for you children's
education. So we've created a comprehensive guide to help
you choose the best children's toys for you child.
"I could tell my parents hated me. My bath toys were a toaster and a radio" - Rodney Dangerfield
The first and most obvious thing you need to consider is the safety of the toy. The quote above is extreme, but I think it serves to highlight that we don't want an object that should be making our children happy to actually do the opposite and cause harm of any sort, or even worse!
For small children, you need to
make sure that the toy doesn't have small parts that they can choke on
as little-ones always tend to put things in their mouths. Other safety
things that should be considered are whether toys shoot things out,
make loud noises and the material of the product needs to be thought
about too.
The younger the child, the more protected they
need to be. For example, a toy for a baby should be typically soft,
light-weight and have no small removable parts that be swallowed. A toy
for a toddler could be made of hard material as well as soft, but
wouldn't shoot things out (as they're bound to shoot in someone's eye,
if not their own), wouldn't have sustained loud noises, and again no
small removable parts.
One last thing on safety, and this
is thinking about your children's emotional safety and almost goes
without saying, but you should always avoid buying any toy with violent
or sexual themes. Your child might already see too much of these topics
and find them confusing, so they don't need to subject them any further.
Our second most important consideration is how the toy will help
develop your child. Some people
may be thinking that 'Fun" should be listed as second, but I'll ask you
to consider this: nowadays the majority of educational toys are fun for your
child, but the same can't be said the oposite way around.
An
educational toys is a great way to help your child become stronger in
areas where you may have noticed that they are not so strong. There are
four main aspects that we will look into; intellectual, emotional (and
this includes social), spiritual and physical growth. In each category,
we've put some recommendations that should help in that particular are
and where possible, a link to an item that we hope you will find
helpful and give you some great ideas.
Intellectual ~ Emotional
(incl. social)
~ Spiritual ~ Physical
Growth
"If it's not fun, you're doing something
wrong" - George di Carlo
Fun.
Such a short word, but if your child doesn't have any while using your
toy, then it simply won't be used again. It will be made redundant and
sit at the bottom of the toy box. It is unfortunately, a waste of
money. It's different of course if the child has outgrown the toy and
no longer uses it, but if you still know where the receipt is and it's
not being used, then it's a waste. But don't worry, we've all bought
toys that haven't achieved what we had hoped; that bear not snuggled
into before bed, that doll's pram not puched, that ball not kicked. It
usually happend when we are rushed to buy or when we just can't afford
a better present.
For children to have
fun with their toys, they need to be entertained of challenged. Good
toys will always entertain children for a period of time while keeping
the child's attention (I mean that the child can use the toy to
entertain themselves,
not
entertain as in the sense a film would entertain). Challenging toys
also keep children focused, as long as it is level appropriate. You
wouldn't give a Rubick's Cube to a 5 year-old and expect them to sit
with it for very long as it is unlikely that they would be able to
complete it (or someone like me!).