Do NOT Waste your Money on Toys this Year! 5 Reasons your Amazon Boxes are more Valuable than the Toy Inside.
Holidays are coming and it’s shaping up to be a very long winter, one that may feel like the longest on record! Because of the pandemic, we may be spending a lot more time at home as more schools are forced to transition to remote learning. You might think this is the perfect time to stock up on toys that will keep kids busy. Forget it! Save your money.
There’s a better solution. My advice is based on 25 years experience as a clinical and academic pediatrician, and 21 more years as a parent. But don’t just trust me, the American Academy of Pediatrics agrees; they say the best gift for your kid may be a box.
Why choose a simple, boring brown box over that shiny new toy with bright colors, flashing lights and moving parts?
Every year, new toys hit the market. Competition and the race for the next trendy gizmo drives new products to become increasingly complex and specialized. As a result, many toys have become more limited in function, each with a complex set of instructions and a single way to play. That’s great for teaching kids how to follow rules, but fails to foster creativity or truly inspire children to think outside the box. In my experience, teaching kids to follow a single set of rules to create a single acceptable outcome is very well accomplished by our modern educational system (that’s another article) and have no place in playtime. The beauty and value of play is lost when a toy comes with instructions. Play is about expanding creativity rather than limiting it.
For parents and kids that want a bit of inspiration, 3Dux posts an ever-increasing range of open-ended design challenges on the website from designing a playground to saving the endangered bee species. Kids can even take a live virtual class, to make new friends and create with a partnering certified elementary teacher.
READ MORE of this article submitted by Marci Lentnek Klein M.D and learn more about 3dux design’s story and how Ayana and Ethan Klein are determined to bring creativity back to early childhood, one Amazon box at a time.
Such great ideas!