"Stop buying a typewriter brand, - strictlysaid her husband Tanya, the mother of a three year old son. - He has them and so the car. And in general ... It is harmful for children when there are a lot of toys! ”The husband looked at Tanya with bewilderment. The words of his wife, he clearly perceived as a momentary invention of a woman who was tired of raking toys from all angles. Maybe it was so. But Tanya is actually right. Scientists from the University of Toledo recently published the results of their research. They collected 36 babies of about the same age and divided them into two groups. One was sent to play in a room where there were 16 toys, and the second had to be entertained with only four.
Photo:GettyImages“We wanted to find out if the number of toys a child has affects the quality of their play,” explained one of the study’s authors, Dr. Carly Douch. For the next half hour, the researchers carefully observed the children’s games. And the conclusion was quite curious: the children who had fewer toys approached the process more creatively. They came up with a lot of additional functions for each toy and invented new rules for the game. And the children who had an excess of toys played with each half as long, and the games themselves were more boring.“An excess of toys only distracts children,” the scientists concluded. “Due to their age, it is quite difficult for children to concentrate on one thing. And when there are few toys, children learn to concentrate, focus, and approach the game more creatively.” As a result, the analysts advised kindergartens to remove unnecessary toys from groups. Or better yet, change them once a week. Then the chances that children will grow up more creative are much higher. By the way, scientists have calculated that each child in Britain, for example, has an average of 238 toys. But they play with a maximum of 12. And one more thing: parents are certainly intuitively right in that children do not value their toys when there are too many of them. They will not learn to take care of their cars and dolls if they are ready to be offered a replacement at any moment.
