From the author: The idea of ​​sharing my observations with you is long overdue. In this article, the discussion in no way comes down to the fact that all toys are evil and you need to play only with surrounding objects. The essence of the article is simple - if you, as parents, approach the issue of buying a toy sensibly, then the benefit from such a purchase will be much greater if you buy something without hesitation. In the article, I did not mention the age criterion, since, in my opinion, parents have already learned to pay attention to the numbers on product packaging and are themselves able to assess the correspondence of the development of their child’s intelligence and the availability of a particular toy to this intelligence. In any case, thank you for the time devoted to this topic! When do we think about what toys should be bought for a child? Most often, at the moment when we are directly in the store (and most likely, with a child). What principle of choosing a toy do we follow? Firstly, we should be convinced by the appearance of the toy, and secondly, by its price. It is not surprising, but manufacturing plants and marketers know about these parental selection criteria and offer you a large assortment of cute, cute, cheap and, in all likelihood, useless SOMETHING. What should you be guided by when choosing a children's toy? Functionality Of course, a toy that What you buy for your child must be functional. And it is desirable that there be as many opportunities to play with it as possible. An unfortunate example in this regard is a large soft toy. In general, the trend of loss of relevance of such products is encouraging. The functional part of such a toy is practically close to zero, but there is quite a lot of hassle associated with maintaining the cleanliness of this toy. And then, how do we, ordinary buyers, know what this toy is literally “stuffed with”? Expediency More and more toys are appearing on store shelves, the meaning of which is a big question. So, for example, in the most ordinary supermarket you can find a children's washing machine, a children's vacuum cleaner (which comes with foam plastic garbage included!), children's household appliances, and even a children's set of a mop, broom and cleaning cloths. It is not at all clear what function these things should perform. The child’s brain works in amazing ways (we never tire of talking about this in many articles). Perhaps a child will be surprised by a washing machine of an unusual color and small size, and even more likely, the child will play with it once while the thing is new to him (just to understand how it works), but in reality, such a thing is absolutely impractical . After all, a child can also be introduced to pressing buttons on a real washing machine, and given real objects that parents use to clean as rags and brooms. Believe me, they are much more exciting - adults use them, which means that the child also feels the value of his actions in the eyes of his parents. Ease of use An important principle that scientists started talking about not long ago. They came to the conclusion that the simpler the toy, the more useful it is for the child. Take, for example, the same familiar plasticine and modern plasticine in balls. Apart from additional worries, “newfangled” plasticine will not bring you anything else - you will have to somehow collect these glued balls almost throughout the house. You won’t be able to sculpt any figures or animals with this kind of know-how. This applies to absolutely the entire range of purchases for children. A familiar small-sized baby doll that absolutely cannot “eat” and “go potty” is much more useful for a child than an expensive doll that screams, sniffles, spits up, eats and, excuse me, needs diapers. All this, for your information, is sold - both food and diapers - so that you spend money again and again. The whole question is why? A toy is like a social conductor. I can’t get around this factor. Yes, a child should also have in his arsenal those toys that his peers play with. For example, after!