Welcome back to our Simplicity Parenting book study. This week, one of my personal favorite chapters! I hope you enjoyed it, too. We will be discussing Environment. Our Stuff. And Toys.
How much stuff is too much? What kind of environment is most healthy? What environment is most conducive to nurturing imagination or to a giving spirit?
This chapter discusses the “mountain of toys” that is so common in bedrooms and toy boxes everywhere, and the implications this phenomenon has on developing children. It’s been only 50 years since the debut of mass-produced, inexpensive toys, and advertising for those toys directly to children. Over this time, one historian, Chudacoff, notes that children’s play has taken a dramatic shift – now far less focused on activities, but more focused on the things involved. Kim John Payne also notes, “The trend towards more high-tech toys speaks to the presumed need for more and more stimulation to hold a child’s attention. This notion has been sold to us so aggressively, not by any one advertisement, but by the cumulative whole. It is the endgame of the commercialization of play. It asserts that play requires products, and that parents must constantly increase the quantity and complexity of toys to capture their children’s attention.”
What stood out to me in this chapter was the idea that too much choice is not healthy for kids. It’s counter-intuitive, especially in a culture that values choice, that equates it with freedom. We feel that more things will give our children more choice, and this is certainly true, but may not be healthy for children who are still developing. Recently an article was published with photos of the developing brain. I could not help but think of this chapter when I saw the caption on the 6 year old brain, explaining that the region of the brain in charge of choices is still very immature, and that too many choices often lead to frustration and tantrums. How enlightening when I consider what my little ones’ environment sometimes looks like, overwhelming even for my grown-up brain!
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Does this chapter cause you to question the role of advertisers in your child’s environment? Marketers fill children’s programming with the message that they should not be content with what they have. That what they really need is more things – that fulfillment can be found in “stuff.” We, too, may be vulnerable to messages from marketers which claim that their toy will spark creativity and unleash imagination! Payne comments, “Ironically, this glut of goods may deprive a child of a genuine creativity builder: the gift of their own boredom.” I found it helpful to remember here that there is no toy that a child really needs to develop well. What they need is unstructured time.
The good news is that we can choose another way. That we can, as Kim says, “draw lines in the sand around our children”, protecting them from the commercialization of childhood and the onslaught of too much stuff. We can give them the opportunity to engage deeply in imaginative play, to create their own worlds and characters. We can provide them an environment of calm openness. Perhaps best of all, we can nurture in them a spirit that will be for them a lifelong gift – a knowledge that fulfillment comes from relationships, not things.
Some Questions to start the discussion (Please feel welcome to jump in the comments below, even if this is your first week joining us.)
This chapter goes into great detail with tips for pairing down the toys and books and keeping only what is best. Have any of you gone through this process in your own homes? What was your experience?
Do you feel able to filter out the message from marketers that happiness is found in things? How have you tackled this in your family?
What did you find most interesting about this chapter?