The Childrens Playthings

New Zealand Times, Volume XXXIII, Issue 7979, 9 December 1911, Page 13

The Childrens Playthings

THERE has been much talk for some years past about tho “simple life, but how few can bear to eliminate even one superfluous luxury from their existence? In spite of all that has been said against it, luxury is still the keynote of modern civilisation* and this is nowhere more noticeable than in the twentieth-century nursery, where the children’s toys ars perfect models of the real article. Little or nothing is loft to the childish imagination, every detail is complete, so there is no outlet for the ingenuity which will be found latent in moot children when necessity is called upon to show she really is the mother of invention.

The perfectly appointed doll’s house, replete with every modern convenience, and the elaborate mechanical toy soon pall on the young owners, because there is nothing left for them either “to pretend" or think out for themselves. Yet modern parents, in their anxiety to make their children happy, load them ■with expensive toys when the little ones would infinitely rather be left to invent their own games with the rudest of accessories and an unlimited supply of imagination. I sometimes wonder, in looking around some nurseries, if the toys there, really and truly were bought solely with the idea of the child’s happiness uppermost. They seem so much more the expression of the individual likes and dislikes of the parents! To buy a child what appeals strongly to our adult mind is always a temptation, but if we can only in memory go back to our own young days and think of the things for which our souls yearned* then, how much more appropriate and appreciated our gifts will be. The average healthy happy child is as pleased ■with the toy costing a few pence as the one costing pounds, while the blase infant, whose expensive playthings are legion, is an abnormality which badly needs reforming out of our midst. I onco knew a fond father who provided a glorious Christmas-tree for his one little girl and a ©mall cousin. It was hung with all the usual flags and tinsel balls and loaded with expensive presents. After it had been stripped and all its wonders revealed, my friend asked his daughter of three, which of ail the toys she liked best. The child, eyed them gravely, then carefully chose a brightlycoloured paper flag, a few inches in size! Is not there a lesson' here which

all parents might mark, learn, and inwardly digest? Expensive toys are also apt to teach a careless extravagence, because they distort a child’s sense of values, and children at all times seem to find difficulty in grasping a true sense of proportion in anything. Remember always that toys . unconsciously educate as well as amuse your child. Dolls and all pertaining to them, suclji as houses, washing and baking sets, dishes and cooking utensils, are the best and most instructive toys for the gix-1 child. They have a distinctive value as teachers of the domestic arts. None of these need cost more than a few coppers, in fact many oan be made at home by the children themselves with a little help and supervision from the adult members of the household.

Simple nursery playthings, which can be made on a wet afternoon, are not only a source of joy to the little ones, in the making aud the future possession, but are also a boon to the busy nurse or mother. If the children are at all artistic then they will enjoy ‘ drawing Dolly Dimple figures on cardboard, aftenvards colouring them and cutting them out. Sets of clothes can, of course, be made in the same way. Remember blunt scissors with rounded points are the safest to give the nursery brood until the children have almost reached their “teens." If kind friends and doting relations do give your little ones expensive and elaborate toys it is a good plan .to have these put away and only brought out on high days and holidays,. or for an hour on Sunday afternoons. I think the granting of special treats for a child on Sunday does more to teach the tiny brain the true significance of the inward meaning of that day; than the old-fashioned method of shutting off all his joy and setting him to learn verses of Scripture to be , afterwards repeated parrotwise. Sunday was then, indeed, a day of purgatory to the youug. With special toys and extra, delights to look forward to, 'each Sunday the child begins to realise something of the goodness of God and the brightness of His service. Another good plan is to have , the toybox or cupboard turned out at least once a year, perhaps just before Santa Claus’ annual visit, and allow the children to select the older toys which can he mended up and sent, to less fortunate little hoys and girls. Always encourage the general spontaneous spirit in the youug.—“Home Notes."