One must have heard about open-ended toys or Montessori toys or even toys that promote an all-integrated growth. As a new parent one could get very overwhelmed with all these new terminologies or heavily laden words being thrown at us. This could make one either very nervous or feel guilty for probably missing out on offering them to your child!
However, worry not dear parent, we are here to decipher these for you and make them very simple to understand. Considering you are the best judge of what should be offered to your child, making that decision yourself and/or with your partner is recommended.u00a0
What is open-ended play?
Traditionally we or we would have heard our parents talk about how they played. Most of it was outdoors with whatever was available in oneu2019s natural surroundings – leaves, stones or bricks! With that they built houses, pretended to play with dolls or imagined dragons and mountains and fairytales built out of blocks!u00a0u00a0
Well there was no real mechanics to play, no prescribed direction to play and most certainly not a manual for play. They or we just played – in ways we knew how to, with others or even just by ourselves and very randomly found the time to even get bored.u00a0
Times have certainly changed, we and our kids stay more indoors now and parenting has evolved a lot for us to feel incomplete at times for our kids! Consumerism has taken over and very often we find our cupboards overflowing with toys while our kids are tuning into the next cartoon on TV! Is there something we can change about this?u00a0
Well we think we can! A lot of times we learn from our history and we believe that a toy needs to be as simple as possible for the child to work harder! Makes sense? Let us decipher this out to you:
What does it mean to play with an open-ended toy?
Open-ended – the word itself means one that does not have a singular correct answer! Now one may wonder why would we want to encourage kids to not have a singular answer? Well that is because in formative years with highly impressionable minds and vulnerable personalities, we want these kids to explore and not conclude! We want them to use their blank slate and write what they wish to on it. We want them to surprise us with ways to think and discoveries they make! And how do we do this? We make an impact where they spend most of their time – which is with play!u00a0
We make play seem like play while they very subconsciously pick up subtle ways of solving what lays ahead of them. And what they are solving is not a math equation with one correct answer, what they are solving calls for a different approach – and the uniqueness of this play is where a childu2019s unique personality comes to life!u00a0
Where they discover a new meaning to a puzzle which can also double up as a forest, a stacking tower or stories of different animals! These toys help kids unlearn, relook and gear their minds in a different way.u00a0
In contrast when play is directed through u2018au2019 method or a way of playing, their mind gets trained to follow instead of question, over time reducing their innate curiosity to find things out for themselves. That is when a child is put out of his comfort zone and builds a mindset to solve! A mindset of resilience and a mindset of growth!u00a0
Quite often we have parents complaining about how their child plays with toys only for some time and then forgets about them and they are dumped in one ignored corner in the house! Well, that is either because the toy is no longer serving its unique proposition to the kids or the child has outgrown the toy! With open-ended toys there is no upper age to play – even adults find themselves productively engaged while playing with these
And that is the exact reason why open-ended toys are preferred. One keeps coming back to them repeatedly with newer perspectives, ideas and approaches to play with these toys.
