Hello and welcome back to the Simplicity Diaries with me, Kim John Payne, the author of Simplicity Parenting. You know, Christmas, the holiday season, is upon us. Even in these strange times, it's rolling right on around.
And I've had a couple of conversations, three or four conversations, actually, with parents in these last couple of weeks about children's requests, Christmas lists, and how to respond to those. Now, in the simplicity parenting way of raising a child, you know, we all know we're trying to be as careful as we can about toy overload. But one point really came up in these conversations, and that is children who were requesting certain toys that were more what I would call merchandising than they were toys.
They are toys that come directly from TV shows, you know, with characters from TV shows. Even if the kids don't watch much TV, they hear about it from other kids and there's, you know, there's a high value on having just that truck that comes just from that program or just that character that comes just from Star Wars and many, many other movies that have merchandising attached to them. Other kids will be asking for toys that are very, very specific.
Now, my experience over the years in helping parents declutter has been very interesting in the sense that those kind of toys, the merchandising toys, the toys that are very that are very fixed, that can basically just do one thing, play one or very few roles because they're so preset, because the images attached to them are so preformed. Those toys, when a year or two down the track, we begin to declutter in a room where I speak to parents about decluttering, they're so often the toys that get discarded first. The children lose interest in them quickly.
When the fad moves on and other kids at school or at kindergarten aren't playing with them anymore and now there are new ads that their friends or even themselves have been subjected to so that toy is no longer cool. But most of all, there's nothing much you can do with a toy that is very formed and preset. It has limited engagement for a child.
There's some, of course there is, but a child doesn't really pour themselves into one of those kinds of toys. Usually they're plastic and molded and very, very detailed or they're battery operated and you press a button and they do stuff, which is fun sort of, but you sit back and watch it do stuff. There's not a lot of engagement and when kids engage with a toy, that's when they invest in a toy and that's when that toy becomes very dear to them, but it becomes an essential part of creativity, of innovation and they can adapt it to this and that and this and that and frankly that's myelinating the limbic system partly in their brain.
That's the cooperative, creative part of their brain that they really need to be laying down those pathways and fixed merchandising, preset, molded toys are really pretty low on the list in my way of thinking when it comes to those toys. Now, what do you say to a child who is all in on wanting that specific piece of merchandising? I guess I'll call it a toy, but what do you say? One of the things I think we can creatively lean into is our family values and the listeners to this podcast will know that I often talk about that, that I'm not a big fan of child-centered homes where a child requests a toy and we do all we can to provide it. I think that a child-centered home is frankly too much responsibility to put on the shoulders of a child.
What I feel is so important is that we have value-centered homes. That's a deep well that we can all nurture ourselves from and in this case the value is a very simple one and that's that we have toys that can do many things. So for a young child requesting merchandising and very fixed preset toy, you know, one can say to a child, you know, in our family we have toys that can do many things.
Oh yes, it can be just that truck or it can be just that person if you want it to be. Yep, we can make clothes for it to be just like Yoda or whoever it is. We can do that and we can, yeah, but it also can be and you can basically say to a child how lucky they are to have toys that can be many things and that's just the way, that's what we do as a family.
Now that moves us away from, you know, judging other families and what they may wish to buy their kids and it roots us firmly in what we do so that on the day when that gift is given there's not a lot of disappointment. The child hasn't developed a mental picture of that piece of merchandising but it might be. For example, if they want a certain castle from a certain, you know, Disney program or whatever it is, that the blocks are presented, you know, with which we can build a castle but, you know, it might be something, might add a few special little things.
You might look at that toy online, usually sold at one of these massive, you know, department stores and get a few little clues and maybe ahead of time you can make some cardboard cut out and just color them in and have an echo of what they were really, you know, had in their mind's eye for that toy or if it's, you know, a, you know, some kind of character from some TV thing, it usually is that sort of stuff, that maybe you spend a little bit of time and you cut out some of the clothing that you and your child can stitch together on the day of gift giving, that is just so pleasurable. You're sitting together and you're stitching together the clothing that is just like what they'd imagined or even better, you know, because we made it. That's my suggestion for this coming holiday season and gift giving.
And of course, if you'd like to speak to me personally with some of the dynamics and issues that might be coming up in your family, please don't hesitate, just go right to Simplicity Parenting, you'll see a request to consult with Kim, click on that and it'll come right through. It's nothing I love to do more than to speak and support with parents individually. Okay, I sure hope that's been helpful for today.
Bye bye for now.
