THE EDUCATION OF YOUR CHILD

Grey River Argus, 15 February 1940, Page 10

THE EDUCATION OF YOUR CHILD

H. C. D. SOMERSET, Community Centre, Feilding. CHILDREN’S TOYS. For one who is supposed to be a great lover of children Santa Claus knows surprisingly little about them. I often wish I could get the old idiot to read something about child psychology between one Christmas and the next. If he reads these articles, I hope he will sit up and take notice. I hasten 'to add that I have nothing against him personally that I regard his visits as one of the best institutions in the world; but I deplore the way he is taken in by the manufacturers of toys when he makes up his pack. ' Last week in this column I wrote of the play of children, and tried to show that it is a very serious business. The child in his play is laying the foundation for his future life. Ihe very cells of his brain and body are being shaped and built into posifon while he plays. In a very real sense the child is therefore father to the man. For the sake of the future we must give him his childhood for his own. Aids to Play-Life. Toys are, or are intended to be, aids to the play-life of the young. Adults seldom take the trouble to understand what the child really needs in the way of toys, and more often than not they buy him what they thems Jives like. Elaborate and expensive things like highly coloured mechanical toys, teddy bears, Felix the cat and other caricatured | animals one sees in the shops, are not children’s toys at all. Adults buy them because they themselves want them. To give them to their children is only an excuse. How often have you heard a parent say, “I bought Mary that beautiful Teddy, but she seems Io like her old rag doll best”? Possession Versus Activity. But it sometimes happens that by dint of buying toys and giving them to your children you pervert their real nature into a love of possession instead of a love of activity. Then the damage is done. The child who boasts of having ten dollies and five teddies will ruin her husband one day by collecting a houseful of rubbish just for the sake of waving it, unless something drastic’‘ Kippens in t’.e meantime. Trust the Child’s Imagination. The child wants to be active,' and tie will find in his surroundings’ all the things necessary for his play, li here is no need to buy him a train; no matter how small he is, he can make his own. Remember that YOUR imagination is starved and ci'Jl; you need a' painted tin train with rails and all before you can imagine one. The child has such a vivid imagination that he can create like the gods. He will find,' lying about the house, all sorts of things that can be transmuted into a train. If you really want to help him, introduce plain wooden blocks into the house. They have a thousand possibilities. Empty tins are another boon. The lid comes off and on, gwing exercise to the nerves and muscles of the hands. The great value of blocks and tins and sticks lies in the fact that they are units from which anything can be built at will. They can be altered endlessly. You build your train—and then, when you have had enough of it, you pull it to bits and the bits will make something else. The child pulls down as well as builds; in a sense he must break down to begin building anew. But if you buy him a “real” toy train., he can only take it to bits in one way—and then you say that children ore destructive. They are not; YOU are merely foolish in not understanding their real nature. . Tools.

To blocks and tins add later on a >f heap of sand or soft earth, a spade, a I- mallet, and short bits of lath for >f driving into the sand. A wheel-bar-y tow is a further necessity; or a cart .- made of a box. All these things are it tools—and the idea of tools should i- underly the idea of all toys. There - are many tools that adults use that e can be used just as well by children. - My own boy of two used to use the e kitchen saucepans in most of his o games. They are “good” things acf cording to his ' i wn description. Motho er used them on the stove. They had ■. beautiful lids that could be put on f and off. He arranged and re-ar-v ranged them and always put them - away in their “home.” Books were a also “good.” They made tracks for . trains to ruin on. And,-contrary to - general belief, children do these • things no harm whatever. At about the age of four some real i tools can be provided—a saw. —a - hammer, some conveniently sized i pieces of soft wood, and some one- » inch large-headed nails. From this . equipment much can' be made by • gathering up old cotton reels and cutting them up for wheels. Children of six and seven can make their own toy motor-cars, ships, and aeroplanes. This gives them scope for ■ 1 heir desire to create something, and at the same lime is in line with the ■ generally accepted theory of play as outlined last week. When the need for some definite and more accurate work arises, such sets of building material as “Meccano” are first class. Toys for Girls. Tb.e play of girls differs' very little from that of boys except that it has a Has towards housekeeping. But the same general rule holds good. Homemade toys and real things used in the home are of more educative value than all the elaborate dolls’ houses imaginable. As the Need Develops. Give your child tools —that is, give him the means for creating his own world around him and you will not pervert it into the desire merely to possess. The same thing applies to every scrap of knowledge the child gets. It should all be given with the idea of using it—not merely of possessing it. And, finally, no knowledge and no tool should be given to the child until he feels the need of it and has the desire to use it.