The familiar position of modern parents: "I just can't understand, the child has a sea of toys! I could only dream of such wealth as a child, but he (the child) does not even touch it."
The presentation of thought may change, but the essence remains. Toys for a child are bought endlessly. As a result, all these beautiful hares, robots and cars stand sadly on the shelves and the child ignores them. Yes, in addition, pestering parents. They say my ancestors are bored. Entertain. To which the parent complains even more, they say, well, look at so many toys. Go play already!
But the foolish cub does not understand his own happiness. Vicious circle!
Well, in fact, the reason for the "ungratefulness" of the child lies in a very simple thing to understand. Limited functionality.
Take for example a toy iron. The iron falls into the hands of the child. They explain to him the functions of the toy: here is a rag. You put a rag, you run an iron over it. How mom irons clothes. The child is interested. But not for long. He quickly masters these manipulations and that's it. Interest disappeared, the iron went to collect dust.
Particularly inquisitive children can also disassemble for parts. Well, suddenly there is something else interesting hidden)
Pyramids, dishes, cars, sorters, robots, soft toys, and many, many toys have a limited set of possible manipulations with them. Of course, there are children who can assemble the same puzzle 1000 times, or drive a car over a carpet for a good forty minutes. But this is rather a manipulation randomly chosen by the child himself, on which he is stuck.
Once I got into a state (this is a real pride, since private ones have long been indulging in violation of generally accepted standards) kindergarten as part of a refresher course. I was warned. As soon as you go there, your templates will fly away to unknown distances and the professional worldview will never be the same. OK. I love that.
So in this garden, except for the designer, I did not see a single toy! Generally. No doll, no car, dishes, pyramids, inserts... Nothing at all. And I was looking☝️ But I noticed an incredible number of attics, boxes, bedspreads, cones, sticks, stones, paints, plates, some strange colored glass, plastic masses, straws, jars with colored substances of unknown composition, pasta, cereals, sand and more Lots and lots of things I can't even remember. And the walls where it is allowed to draw (oh holy little bumps. What obscurantism🙃)
And then it began to dawn on me, outrageously simple and at the same time brilliant truth. Functional! An ordinary stick in the hands of a five-year-old has an almost unlimited set of functions! And if you add a rag and an elastic band to this, then that's it. Flight of thought and fantasy. With such a set of objects that look simple to an adult, a child's superpower turns on - to make a whole hoo out of nothing!
This of course does not mean that toys are not worth buying. There are categories of toys that fall into the "long-playing" league. Constructors for example.
But when purchasing a toy for a child with obviously limited functionality, you need to be prepared for the fact that it will become a nursery decoration or will be disassembled into molecules in order to reveal interesting things hidden in the shell.
This is fine. This is how the process of cognition of the world by a child is arranged, within the framework of subject manipulations.
Mastered the functionality of the subject - switch.
The number of toys a child has does not affect interest. Interest awakens the opportunity to apply fantasy and satisfy curiosity. Therefore, when you want to once again groan at the child and point out the shelves and baskets bursting with toys, take a closer look! Are those toys? 🤨