Does Your Child Have Too Many Toys?

Photo by Martin Poole/Thinkstock

I have a friend who’s a minimalist with her daughter’s toys. When we met for a play date, her 2-year-old had a small set of blocks and one doll — and the kid was so imaginative and expressive that it made me anxious about how many toys my daughter had. My preschooler switches from the dollhouse to the Legos to the sleeping baby doll to the sticker books quicker than I can turn my head. And so, the “Am I a good parent” worries started: Does my child have attention issues from having too many toys? Is she losing ground because she doesn’t have to use her imagination for entertainment? What have I done?!

“There is definitely such a thing as too many toys,” says Claire Lerner, director of strategic initiatives at Zero to Three, a non-profit that promotes the healthy development and wellbeing of young children and their families. So how can parents make smart choices about which toys to choose and how to get the most benefits (and fun) out of playtime? Lerner has suggestions:

Know Your Child’s Temperament
“Some young children walk into a room with 100 toys and have the ability to zero in on one and begin to play,” she tells Yahoo Parenting. “Other kids might walk in and get overwhelmed by what they perceive as chaos — they’re distracted by so many choices that they can’t even begin to play.” Knowing how your child interacts with a roomful of toys gives you clues to what you should set up in your own home: A nursery filled with colorful options? A small, minimal setup with blocks and a stuffed animal, à la my friend? Something in-between?

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Change the Way You Look at Toys
“Once parents see toys not as entertainment but as tools for learning, it’s easier to make good decisions around which ones to present,” Lerner says. “When you pick out a toy, ask yourself, ‘What kind of skills will my child need to use this toy?’ The more a toy requires a child to use their thinking skills and their bodies to engage, the better a tool for learning that it’s going to be.” Lerner notes that there’s a reason why building blocks are timeless: “There are thousands of things you can do with them. Blocks nurture fine motor skills, visual and spatial reasoning, depth perception, modulating body movements for balancing, and even the imagination piece (‘What can this tower be?’).”

Observe Your Child’s Play
“You don’t have to be a child-development specialist to see what engages a kid,” says Lerner. “Tune into how they’re playing.” For example, maybe a 6-month-old is starting to work on a pincer grasp — he picks up two blocks and bangs them together. The next step might be a shape sorter where he can problem-solve filling, emptying, fitting, opening, and closing. “Ask yourself what your child is working on and what tools you can give to him to help him develop that next skill,” says Lerner.

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Keep the Play Area Simple
“Create a toy shelf with 4 to 5 items on it,” says Lerner, who suggests a basket of blocks and stuffed animals as a starting point. “Watch and see what your children express interest in.” Your other items might be puppets, dress-up clothes, a few books, vehicles or play food — keep it simple. Even if you have a closetful of toys (grandparents can be so generous), they don’t have to be on display all at once. “Rotate toys to refresh kids’ enthusiasm and limit the overwhelming sense of ‘too much,’” advises Lerner.

Encourage Play, Don’t Control
Kids are creatures of habit with their toys, and repetition (choosing the red car every time) is a critical piece of learning. To introduce a new method of play or engage an older toddler or preschooler with a new toy, first sit back and follow their lead. If your daughter chooses the red car again, instead of saying, “No more cars, play with the new blocks instead!” try something like, “Would your car like to come drive on the road I’m building?” This way, Lerner says, you’re expanding a child’s thinking skills as opposed to creating a playtime power struggle. “You want to be a careful observer and if they’re happily engaged and exploring, let them do that — they’ll learn to be their own best resource. But also be somebody who expands their world by joining them with new ideas.”

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Make Bells-and-Whistles Toys Interactive
Everyone has the light-up, music-playing, button-pushing set of toys, especially in the very beginning when infant skills are limited to the mashing of a button — and there’s nothing wrong with that. But there are ways to make those types of toys more valuable, learning-wise, says Lerner. “You want the experience to be dynamic, so if you’re playing with a pop-up toy, make it interactive and language-rich by sitting next to your child and narrating: ‘Which button do you want to push? Oh, the round one! What’s going to happen? Oh! Who popped up? The elephant!’” Make those a social activity — then be sure to put them away, with the switch in the ”off” position.