How We Do Things Series...Toys

Toys, toys, toys!!! Seems like a never ending job to keep on top of that subject around here!

With this many occupants and this many birthdays, we had to find a way to manage toys before they took over our house!!!!

We used to have a play room down the basement and that is where we stored most of the toys, with the exception of “special” toys. Those get stored in the kids rooms. (But there is a limit to how many they can keep in their room). So our kids would spend a lot of their time in the basement playing with “toys”.

But as our kids grew and as God added more of them to our family, we started to realize that a lot of character training happens when children play together. And when our children were downstairs, out of earshot, we were missing out of a lot of training opportunities. It was then that we decided to move a bunch of the toys upstairs. Since then the kids have played upstairs, around us, within hearing range.

This took some adjusting, because I have to admit, I enjoyed the peace and quiet that came when our kids were playing way downstairs and I couldn't really hear them :) But when we moved all the action upstairs, the noise level rose and my tolerance and patience had to rise with it.

But we have never regretted this decision. It has been so valuable to have them play around us.. Not only is it fun to listen to (most times) but there are so many character issues we can deal with, before things get out of hand. Way less, “He said, she said.” “He did, she did!”

We have always tried to keep our kids toys narrowed down to things that will assist them in playing out real life skills. When we built the family room we finally got the toys organized the way I had been dreaming of for a long time. We have one shelf, with containers that are labeled with different toys. eg. Cars, lego, blocks, dishes, play food, people, farm machinery, ect. The children are only allowed to take a couple boxes off the shelf at a time and are to clean those up before they take out any more. The boxes have helped me be more organized in the toys that I buy, and it helps the kids to be more organized in their play and not make huge messes that are too overwhelming to clean up. We also have one box that has misc. type toys plus a toy box with baby toys These toys do not go on the shelf.

The board games are on the top shelf for the simple reason that everyone cannot reach them. I love to encourage our kids to play games, but I don't like all the lost pieces that happen when they have free reign of them. So this way I can somewhat moniter them.

We are very careful with the toys we let our kids play with. Like I said before we like to buy toys that assist in acting out life skills. In the same way, we don't buy toys that would encourage attitudes or behaviour that is contrary to our morals and beliefs as a family.

An example of a couple of things we have chosen to avoid would be guns for boys and barbies for girls. We have talked about guns and came to the conclusion that they only imply one thing and that is death. And we would rather encourage life. In watching little boys play with guns, rarely have we seen them simply shoot at targets, rather they shoot at living things. When they are younger, we would rather cultivate an attitude of kindness and caring for life. Now we understand the whole thing about boys hunting and all that, but we think that is something that they will learn easily enough when they are old enough and responsible enough to handle a real gun. So we choose to keep toy guns out of our toy box.

Barbies are something we have never had in our home. We teach our children to be modest and that beauty comes from the inside. We feel that barbies teach the opposite virtues. Instead we provide our little girls with baby dolls. We have been amazed at how baby dolls seems to bring out the nurturing side of little girls. This is something we want to encourage, as we hope that one day our girls will be able to experience the joy of motherhood.

When we buy toys for our children we ask ourselves if this is a toy that would encourage our children in the values that we have taught them. If we feel a certain toy encourages feelings, desires or emotions contrary to God's Word, we don't encouraging our kids to practice it in their play. If it's a cartoon character we would not let them watch on video, it is not something we allow in our toy collection.

We want to glorify God in every area of our family's lives. And the toys we allow our kids to play with is no exception. It is never worth lowering our standards just for the sake of entertainment.

And so here is my top 10 list of toys:

Lego

Building Blocks

Play Tools

Dolls, Doll House and Little People

Play Do

Play Kitchen, Dishes and Food

Farm Machinery

Puzzles

Plastic Animals

Board Games









How about you? What are some of your families favorite toys?