A Guide to Buying Children’s Toys
Buying toys for children is not that simple – even for your own. Your mission is to find a toy that’s affordable, that’s durable enough to outlast the child’s interest in it, that’s the child’s idea of “cool” or desirable, that’s safe, that’s age appropriate and that will keep the child’s interest. Believe it or not, what the child says she wants is not necessarily what will hold her interest for any amount of time.
Worse, you’re confronted with tons of choices on TV advertisements, in catalogs and fliers. You’re also getting information from the kid, who sees her friends’ toys and wants them. The cool toy everyone was buying six months ago may now be seen as egregiously out of fashion. So how do you make a good choice?
Check with parents
If you are the parent, skip over this one. Parents generally know best what their kids want – both what the kids are saying they want in theory, and what sort of toys they respond to the most in reality. If a birthday or gift-giving holiday is coming up, it’s also good to coordinate with parents so you don’t buy the child a duplicate gift.
Don’t succumb to trends
It’s not necessarily wrong to buy a child a toy that’s not going to last five minutes because all his friends have it. But does it teach him the values you want to impart? Or that his parents are trying to impart? Sure, if you’re the type who would jump off a cliff if everybody else was doing it, too. What if the child is innocently asking for a controversial toy you feel sends bad messages about, say, violence?
There is absolutely nothing wrong with buying a child a toy you think is cool. The worst that can happen is he’ll roll his eyes behind your back and it will end up in the back of the closet. But that could happen with the much-requested toy all his friends have, when the cheap thing breaks and all his friends move onto the next much-requested toy. Your toy – the one the child didn’t know he wanted – could end up being treasured.
Educational Toys
Educational toys are great, too, so long as they’re well-made and all that. These toys don’t get the promotional dollars spent on them that companies like Disney or Mattel can afford to spend on toy ad campaigns. But most kids respond to educational toys surprisingly well, because children have an innate desire to learn. If the toy interests you or piques your curiosity, or does something inexplicable, then as long as the child doesn’t already have one, it’ll be a great choice.
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