Did you know too many toys in a play environment can have adverse effects on children?
I have written previously on this topic, based on research from 1999. But a new study, being released early next year, confirms the original findings and continues to expand on its conclusions.
Researchers from the University of Toledo have just published a study in The Journal of Infant Behavior and Development called, “The Influence of the Number of Toys in the Environment on Toddler’s Play.” The research is important.
According to their study, young children who play in environments with fewer toys tend to display sustained levels of attention, increased imagination, perception, cognition, and motor coordination.
In their words, “fewer toys may allow for deeper, sophisticated play, because of the opportunity to become creative with each object in the environment.” Too many toys, on the other hand, act as a distraction to focused play.
The researchers point out why this finding is so important. Through play, children learn to interpret the world around them, enhancing their development. As cognitive, language, and motor skills develop, these skills form the foundation for more age-appropriate tasks in the future.
In their study, children were provided extended play time in environments that contained four toys, and environments that contained sixteen toys.
As you might expect, children who were placed in the environment with only four toys showed a significant difference in quality of play: sustained attention, increased imagination, and increased exploration resulting in improved coordination, pretending, problem-solving, and learning.
These are important truths for us as parents to consider—but also for us as guardians, grandparents, caretakers, teachers, and childcare professionals.
The number of toys in our homes matter. Too many toys in one environment often act as a distraction to the various stages of development we hope they encourage within our children.
In the United States, toy sales amount to $24 billion annually—$3.1 billion from infant and preschool toys alone. The U.S. represents 3.1% of the world’s children, but 40% of the toy market. The typical 10-year old in Great Britain owns 238 toys and the average child in the US receives 70 new toys annually!
Those statistics stand in sharp contrast to the study above. Remember, children placed in environments with only 16 toys displayed significant levels of distraction keeping them from quality, focused play… now, imagine the impact that hundreds of toys in our homes may be having on our kids.
I’m not in the business of making specific recommendations on how many toys is the correct number for your children. That’s not what I do—no matter how often I am asked to do so. My goal, only, is to raise the level of awareness and observation of the burden that excess possessions may be having on our lives—or in this case, the lives of our children.
You, as parents, will ultimately decide what is the right number of toys for your kids. I just want to encourage more intentionality around the conversations we are having about it.
I’m not saying you shouldn’t buy any gifts for your kids this holiday season. But I am saying we should work hard to create play environments for our children that encourage healthy development. And sometimes, that means less toys rather than more.
Before buying your kids a whole bunch of toys this Christmas, ask yourself if that’s really the best you can give them this year.
Judy says
I still go back to one of my favorite Christmas sayings:
“It’s not about what’s under the tree…but who’s around it that matters,”
Sunshine says
P.S. For Christmas, the children are getting Legos, books and music, clothing, and favorite foods. They will be thrilled! Most of it will be what they need, with the Legos thrown in. If I could recommend one toy, Legos are it.
Sunshine says
This is so true, and even after paring down, my children have too many toys. I see how much happier they are with favorites; so I’m working together with them now to ask what they would like to let go of. Once toys are in the door, it is harder. I have children ranging from preschool to teen, and this year the preschooler mentioned being overwhelmed by all the presents just from us and 3 different relatives. So I asked which ones, and he said he only wanted the one set of Lego, and all the rest were just too much. He love Legos and will play with them for hours building scenes and acting with his imagination. Another day, he did play with his other toys and enjoy them, but when it was time to put them away, he commented again on how he has too much stuff. So I picked up each set and asked whether to keep it or give it to a child who needed more toys. He knew right away which were keepers and which to give. Beautiful! I know we could get rid of every single toy and just keep Legos and building blocks and the kids would be happy. I’ll ask if they’d like to do that!
Jaynann says
Thank you for this timely message!!
Sandy says
I was not aware of this study. Every parent should consider this study and give limited toys.
Kate Stockman says
When our kids were little, each year I would sit with them and help them go through all their toys to choose the ones they had outgrown. Once they made their choices, we bundled them up and took them to the local crisis ministry non-profit to gift to kids who didn’t have toys. Our kids actually loved this way of sharing! And it cleaned up some of the clutter to boot!
Sunshine says
I love this! We donate toys too, but you have given me a great location to gift them. It also helps me when I see old favorites leaving the house that I might want to save for grandchildren-to know that someone that needs toys will enjoy them now.
Jeffrey Pillow says
Starting December 1, we, as a family, are playing a minimalism game — kids included. Every day my kids have to choose a toy or book they’ve outgrown to donate. There’s a paper grocery bag in their rooms where they’ll place the donation and check off the day. My wife made a little calendar on the side of the bag. They will play this game until December 24.
My kids are surprisingly on board. I’m glad. I find Christmas difficult. I wish I didn’t feel that way, but some of our relatives do not respect our wishes not to load our kids down with gifts at Christmas.
It’s all too much.
I appreciate this article. I wish it was required reading.
Sunshine says
We stopped doing huge family gift exchanges as there got to be more children, but we still get grandparent gifts. We teach the children to be thankful and genuinely thank loved ones for the gifts they chose, but to quickly pass along any gifts we don’t want or need. It helps when the children are on board with this. When they send away their new gifts, we go do something simple and fun as a family instead, and that is an even better gift.
Jeffrey Pillow says
We haven’t done extended family exchanges for a few years. My wife and I spoiled everyone’s fun, you could say. That doesn’t stop extended family from surprising our kids with entirely too many gifts though, particularly relatives who don’t have grandchildren of their own that see our kids, in a way, as their grandchildren.
It’s hard to combat. It’s gotten better, but it’s still a battle. The word that’s been used is that we are “depriving” our children, which couldn’t be further from the truth. My kids do indeed receive gifts from us, but we keep it in check.
Sunshine says
When all the children are grown up, it might finally dawn on the doubters that you were right in knowing what was best for your children. It took a long time but happened for my parents.
Skeeter says
This is a very mindful article, and my wife and I subscribe to the less is better mindset. We also work with our son (8) to donate the items he no longer has interest in to others who have less.
We try to buy as sustainable as possible when making our purchases too!
John says
My Dad always spoiled my sister and I with lots of gifts at Christmas. I used to call my buddy and we’d compare all the stuff we got. But in short order, everything lost its luster and I’d return to my favorite activity-drawing in my sketchbook.
Leo says
I had those cartoons characters I collected and kept going back to them to make great teams…Totally agree….something you can’t have enough
Valerie says
Getting these concepts across in a society entrenched in consumption isn’t easy. To me, the holidays embody what’s wrong with society on many levels. Possessions should be limited.