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To quote from The Future of Play Theory: A Multidisciplinary Inquiry into the Contributions of Brian Sutton-Smith: Findings from studies of war toys are diverse, if sparse. War toys have been found to enhance aggression (Sanson and Di Muccio, 1993; Turner and Goldsmith, 1976; Watson and Peng, 1992) reduce aggression (Bonte and Musgrove, ...

First of all, my advice is that you should avoid television and computers for now. He's too young to really benefit from it, and these things can train him to become even more impatient and shorten his attention span. I think this related question has several useful answers for you: How can I keep a 14 month old busy at some activity for longer than 3 ...

I decided to go and hunt down an answer for this because although so far we have managed to keep playdough in the kitchen, which has a wooden floor, it is bound to happen sometime. So, the official line from Hasbro is: “When attempting to remove PLAY-DOH compound do NOT use hot water or cleaning solutions of any kind. To remove PLAY-DOH compound from ...

Penny Holland, who lectures in Early Childhood Studies at the University of North London, authored a 2000 study on the effects of a zero tolerance policy for war, weapon, and superhero play. Finding that studies that sought to find a causal connection between war and weapon play and aggression in children and later adulthood were unable to prove such a link ...

There's no way you can make your child not like to play with toys, and no reason to try. You can't force these things, and your child will resent you for trying. If your child is playing with toys more that's his choice and you have to let him make it. He wants to become more independent, and that's a normal and good thing. If you want your child to ...

Our son started really getting into certain types of building toys around that age, wooden trains/tracks, duplos, and megablocks. Megablocks are easier to put together than duplos if you child is not dexterous enough for duplos yet. Spend as much time as you can doing physical (for him) things too, take walks together, or take a soft ball outside and show ...

There is a huge body of research out there into toy preferences, mostly dealing with gender and "gendered toys." I can find no studies on early toy preferences being predictive of later behavior, nor what makes a child pick particular toys. It is my experience (parent, preschool teacher) that toy preferences can be influenced by modeling from parents, ...

Part of the answer is around you creating an environment where this can happen - children learn directly from you and the environment. Take them to places where they can meet other kids - play parks, softplay etc You should interact with other parents to show a good example When at home, make sure you play with your child and interact with other adults and ...

Some kids are naturally a little more introverted than others, and two-year-olds are still sort of trying to figure out social interaction anyway. What I see a lot of times with 2s is that they play around each other, but not so much with each other. Now that my son is older (he's 4), he plays with kids his own age a lot, but sometimes he becomes a little ...

I taught twos, threes and fours for a few years. There isn't a lot you can do about the stuffed toys except put them in the laundry every so often, but here is what I did in my classroom in regard to the plastic stuff. Keep bleach locked away somewhere. At the end of the day put a capfull in a bucket of water and throw in the toys that were licked or ...

As well as the other good suggestions already made, I would like to add one: don't have too many different toys out at all the same time. If a toddler catches sight of something out of the corner of their eye, it will be "ooh, shiny" and they'll be off to that and forget what they were just doing! If you want to persist with the same toy for a bit longer, ...

In the US, the Consumer Product Safety Commission keeps track of toys that have been recalled (or are recommended for recall) based on things like lead in paint, choking hazards, etc. Not sure how useful this would be in your country but I'm betting there is a lot of overlap with childrens' toys between our two countries. :) We personally choose toys based ...

First, I would suggest that you instate a rule that means the kids clean up every 1 or 2 hours so things are less daunting at the end of when it is time to leave. Another way to meet the same goal is to clean up each activity that gets done before moving on to the next activity. There should never be a situation where more than one room is messy at a time ...

Don't let it get that messy to begin with. If you've given the kids free reign for 2½ days then it's no big wonder that cleaning up is almost impossible. We have a house rule that all toys are cleared away before bedtime. This is part of the regular bedtime ritual. When you have guests over and the clutter is much worse, I would even add another clean-up ...

"Collaborative play" is where children begin to play with other children directly. Before they move into that stage, they may play amongst other children, but tend to still be solo playing (called "parallel play"). It's quite normal for a 2 year old to still be in the parallel play mode of interaction. So, don't do anything. Your kid is normal. ;)

Basically, if the child still needs it, it is too soon to give it up. There is no medical or psychological evidence that there is an age too old for comfort objects, eg Lovey's. Many children keep them until they make friends at school. Comfort objects are very important for children. Teaching children to cope with stress will help with transitions. Even ...

Similar to @Balanced - I bought my kids a few kilos of lego off eBay, and when it arrived I was a bit concerned with cleanliness. Some of the bricks smelled, some were sticky, some had obviously been outside in a sandpit etc. So we filled a bath with water and some Milton (very mild bleach suitable for children's toys) and washed all the bricks. To rinse ...

Some kids are more into toys at this age than others; my 1 year old daughter can spend hours just playing in a pile of toys, but my son at that age would bore quickly. He was more into physical activities (still is). Also, at 15 months some kids may not have developed the skills for "pretend" and "assembly" that a lot of toys require to get the most fun ...

My 10 year old was that way when she was a toddler. She wouldn't play with any toy for longer than 5 to 10 minutes. While it was quite frustrating at the time, it all makes sense now. She has turned out to be an extroverted go-getter who is involved in myriad school activities and also doing great with her academics. It was just her personality. Hang in ...

The simple answer is not to buy bathtub toys that squirt water. You can still have squirty fun. Just keep old shower jel bottles and use them instead. They hold a lot of water, and can be binned without worrying about cost. Sooner or later, you will forget to clean your rubber duck, and it will fill with moldy sludge. This will both smell and be a health ...

Like any nasty, impossible task, it will become easier if you break it down into smaller parts. Divide the area to be cleaned into separate smaller areas, and define separate tasks that take about 30 seconds to two minutes for a child to do: eg cleaning up the table, floor, desk, bed; or putting away the train set, making the bed, putting clothes into the ...

Alok has answered question part, however, there is an important thing I need to refer to, which is watching TV for kids. After doing some research, here are my results: According to some research of "American Academy of Pediatrics", under the title of "BABIES AND TODDLERS SHOULD LEARN FROM PLAY, NOT SCREENS", those are the key findings: Many video ...

The child is one year old. At this stage it's learning from everything around it. Try to give the child different (but safe) objects and see what they gets engrossed in without trying to push them in a particular direction and take it from there. For example, different coloured clothes, dolls, moving objects like cars, building blocks. They don't even have ...

I'm going to give a totally different answer to the others here and suggest that it's the parents' problem, not yours, so they should make sure it's cleaned up before they leave. Why should you have to clean up after their kids? They shouldn't be leaving your house in a state with you having to do lots of cleanup, so next time ask them to leave the house in ...

At your daughter's age she is developing skills in problem solving, cause and effect, and other cognitive activities. She is probably enjoying things like pouring things into containers (pots, boxes, etc.), dumping them out, seeing what fits, seeing what happens when she makes one thing interact with another, etc. These are typical skills for a toddler to ...

Yes, there are many such studies. It would be hard for a layperson to synthesize the large amounts of research that have been done in this area, and I won't attempt to do so, since I wouldn't be able to quickly figure out just which studies are the most well-regarded ones, nor pick a representative enough sample to show the full range of effects, let alone ...

I always check the product safety label of the toy, to give me an assurance that the toy is safe for my child and age-appropriate, as well. I also consider the guidelines set by CPSC in choosing toys, such as: Toys made of fabric should be labeled flame retardant or flame resistant Stuffed toys should be washable Painted toys should be covered with ...

Sooner or later your child will be playing with one of their friends who will comment on their security blanket / lovey. Depending on the age of the children, this comment will either be empathetic or derisory. IE, they will either relate to it, or think that it is babyish. Once your child knows that it is not the done thing, in the eyes of their friends, ...

Your child might be an introvert. And that is perfectly okay. There is nothing wrong with introverts, though an extrovert might not see it that way. It is okay for someone to prefer to play or work by himself most of the time. Some people find it physically draining to be around others for long periods of time. There is nothing wrong with them even ...

Years ago, when I was in my twenties, my Grandad showed me a storage box. It contained all the letters and cards my brother and I had ever sent him as children. It was amazing looking through them all, and I was quite touched. Step forward a few years, and I'm a parent now myself. I have so far accumulated three foolscap containers containing numerous ...