Can Good Things Happen When the Immovable Mass of the Toy Market

Meets the Irresistible Force of Play?

 Jim Johnson (jej4@psu.edu)

Penn State University

Ours is a dynamic, turbulent and troubled time.  Raising and educating children in the 21^st century presents many challenges. 

The season is long past when families could go to the toy shop down the street and see individual toys displayed neatly on the shelves and be attended by a patient shopkeeper ready to help parents and kids make the right decisions about which toys to buy.  Toy stores today are huge places with long aisles with boxes piled high that are usually part of a national or international conglomerate.  The sheer quantity of merchandise is overwhelming. And families no longer just purchase toys for their kids on special occasions like birthdays and holidays, but year round.  Toy makers have found ways to reach children and to get them to urge their parents to buy the latest toys. And we are being inundated with new products at a brisk pace.  Retail sales are in the billions of dollars a year.

Every February in New York City the American International Toy Fair takes place hosted by the Toy Industry Association.  It is the largest toy trade show in the Western Hemisphere with approximately two thousand manufacturers, distributors, importers and sales agents from 30 countries represented.  New toy and entertainment products are showcased. Many products are technological or novelty playthings, and appeal to one’s fantasy and desire for immediate pleasure. Positive developments include a tremendous increase in diverse and multicultural toys, including dolls.

Parents want their children to engage in productive, purposeful play because they see this as a way for them to prepare for a complex and changing future.  They are often drawn to so-called educational toys, which can teach children about colors, letters, numbers and music.  They listen to child development experts and early childhood educators and also seek out open-ended toys conducive to discovery and complex inventive play, like construction sets or blocks. At the same time, parents feel that childhood is a time for imagination --and that kids need sheltering from the adult world, and some autonomy from parental and teacher authority.  Parents are susceptible, then, to their child’s request for those toys that are flashy and appeal only to childish imagination and that parents realize are not good for the child’s development.   Many times parents cave in and purchase such toys out of concern about peer group pressure on their child, and wanting their child to be happy with the toy.

Toy makers realize that parents will usually follow the child’s lead when it comes to buying a toy and hence make sales pitches directly to the kids through newspaper and magazine ads, toy catalogues, ads on cereal boxes, and TV advertisements during favorite kid’s television shows. Many toys are media-linked, such as superhero figures that are stars of cartoon shows. Since the primary aim of the toy industry is profit, toy makers are typically not shy about pushing toys that many educators would not recommend.

Some toy makers make promises of instant gratification to children, presenting toys in sparkling packages and misleading TV commercials. They also misrepresent the educational value of many toys to anxious parents.  They produce lines of toys, such as certain dolls, action figures, and other fantasy toys that are ever changing and that require constant additional purchases in order to keep the plaything or play set current and enjoyable.  Many children are pressured by marketing and media forces into wanting ever more things and experiences.  Once this consumer bug infests one’s consciousness, it is hard to ever be really satisfied.

Parents who wish their children to be imaginative, creative, and playful, to be able to live life to its zenith, to experience states of “flow”, must nurture them to set their own aims and to follow through in work and play to achieve them. Parents and teachers should encourage children to develop their sense of inner direction and self control that mediates positive work and play habits and which can serve as a shield against media and market forces and negative peer group influences.

Play contributes to the emotional, cognitive, physical, social, and over-all development of the child. Genuine, deep engagement in play empowers children in many ways. Play can help children cope and be resilient in today’s difficult world. Teachers and parents can help children reap the promises of healthy self-directed play. These  promises include: Knowing one’s self and others better, heightened creativity and imagination and problem-solving skills, greater emotional and personal and spiritual well-being, self motivation and will power to control one’s experiences, achieving and maintaining a sense of contentment, having confidence and a good moral compass, and finally, being a compassionate and a loving person. All these are possible for our children when the power of play is unleashed, and harnessed.  This is possible, even in the face of all the challenges posed by popular culture, mass media, and marketing forces.

My talk explores and aims to stimulate discussion about  ways parents and teachers can reduce the negative impacts of popular culture, media, and commercialism, and also about how we might even use their possibilities for the enrichment and the well being of children. 

James Johnson, PhD (jej4@psu.edu) is Professor-in-Charge of Early Childhood Education at Penn State; current President of the Association for the Study of Play; and serves on the Advisory Board for Playing for Keeps and the International Council for Children's Play.