Although the choice of toys often comes across as a situation where parents are in a dilemma, the main point that is overlooked is what is important. a game not a toyit is.
Although play is considered in many families as a process in which children play by themselves without disturbing them, it is actually an integral part of the child’s development and education.
Through play, the child not only gets the opportunity to get to know the outside world, but also spends the magnificent energy they have accumulated in their tiny bodies in the most acceptable way.
In addition, play helps the child release one of his strongest and natural impulses, aggression.
Children’s social circles, which are not as large as adults, appear in games in which different communication models are copied. We have often come across a child making two dolls talk in a way that is probably copied from the mother and father’s daily conversations, playing with toy cars, exhibiting the attitudes of his parents while driving, and punishing the doll in the role of little sister. This gives us clues both about how the child perceives the outside world and about ourselves through the mirror he holds towards us. In this context, play is not an evaluation of free time, but a reflection of the child’s developing and changing personality.
Another role of play is that children should learn some cognitive concepts while playing with toys of various shapes and sizes. It helps to understand the differences and similarities of the object as well as the opposite concepts such as big-small, long-short, colored-colorless. Although the square or rectangle does not mean much to the child in the conceptual sense, it will be interesting to know that the table on which he eats is rectangular.
In the beginning, the child, who prefers to play alone, starts to allow participation in the game from the close environment and switches to group play as the content of the game becomes richer and the figures needed in the game increase. But the egocentric structure in early childhood insists on setting the rules in the game. This also reveals the first personality conflicts, but at the same time the child begins to prepare for the first role he will take in the adult world.
The way the family approaches the child has a great effect on the attitude of the child in the game. Apart from the characteristics of their developmental periods, the children of families with an overly tolerant approach may display a more incompatible and incompatible character during the game, while the children of families with an overly authoritarian approach may adopt passive, passive-aggressive or aggressive attitudes.
GAME BY AGES
When we enter the rooms of newborns, the first thing that catches the eye is that they are designed as if they came out of magazines. It is generally seen as a reflection of the dreams of mothers, especially until they reach this blessed responsibility, rather than the needs of the child. In fact, this riot of colors in the baby’s room and the moving materials hanging from different places are your children’s first toys.
The movements we make by shaping our faces, the music box rotating on the bedside or the shapes on the wallpaper are actually games that trigger your 2-3 month old baby’s perception and motor development in every move he makes to reach and hold them… As hand-arm coordination develops, he will catch the objects around him and hit them together It will enrich your game with the sound that comes out. When choosing toys for 0-18 month old children, it is necessary to choose colorful, different sizes, unbreakable, soft and preferably washable toys that will arouse cause and effect relationships in them. When he starts walking, toys that will motivate this movement can be chosen that move with him or follow him.
Up to the age of 2, children can often play parallel games with each other. They either play alone or they can play with different objects despite being in the same environment.
The child, who starts to socialize a little more from the age of 2, begins to repeat the roles of the figures in the close environment. While trying to talk to her baby like her mother, she can try to read the newspaper like her father, and drink water from an empty glass. As the age progresses, the police begin to imitate social roles such as the doctor. Large piece puzzles and colored sticks can be preferred for children of this age, with which they can establish cause-effect relationships.
At the age of 4-6, it is seen that children tend to play games and toys suitable for the characteristics of their sexual identities. While boys include the masculine figures they identify with in their games, girls mostly play games with feminine characteristics. In this period, the main characteristic feature is mostly imitation of mother or father. During this period, whether you want it or not, she will choose toys that are suitable for her gender. 10-12 piece jigsaw puzzles, disassembled large piece car, etc. toys, all kinds of coloring books should be preferred.
For every period, but especially for the preschool period, the easiest game and toy to find and implement is “water”. Water, which suppresses the aggressive tendencies of the child and discharges his negative energy, also develops the child’s creativity and analytical thinking with the secondary materials to be left in the water.
Under no circumstances do electronic toys contribute to the development of the child. Since all data about cause and effect are compressed between electronic circuits, they do not contribute to the development of the child’s creativity.
As can be understood from our article; what really matters is the game, not the toy… A toy goes no further than being a tool on the way to the goal. The toy gains value with the role and sharing attributed to it. For a child, any object around you can be a toy, as long as they have playmates who keep their childlike hearts in huge bodies to play with.
