Glitter unicorns and snail shells
5.7.2017
Translation: machine translated
There are toys whose appeal will not fade in a hundred years and others that are almost forgotten as soon as they are unpacked. A - not entirely serious - compilation.
Despite all the changes in the toy world, when it comes to our children's favourite toys, many things are exactly the same as they have always been. Time and space for play, on the other hand, have decreased in recent decades. Earlier and more often today, free play has to give way to a structured daily routine with school activities or is too often replaced by pastimes such as television and computer games; there is also a lack of places where children can spend time without adult supervision. As a result, children often find it less easy to familiarise themselves with a game and stay with it for longer; some no longer know how to approach a role-playing game or lack the stamina to learn and practise the more complex rules of a card game.
Experts agree that good toys always encourage new games, can be changed and used in a variety of ways and stimulate the imagination. This is exactly what building blocks, balls and dolls, modelling clay and Legos, but also water, sand and stones do - and teach children a lot about the world. A short - not entirely serious - list of the most popular toys:
What rolls like this
It's amazing how many different ways round things manifest themselves in the nursery: There are balls made of plush and balls from which the Frozen siblings look out at you, balls that can be squeezed into a frisbee, balls that light up and balls that ring, footballs and basketballs, balls that are made of plastic and balls that are made of plastic.balls and basketballs, inflatable globes, marbles that all disappear under the sofa at some point and balls that bounce into every corner of the room before disappearing for good. But that's why you bought them by the dozen.
Buying and selling
Before the wooden chicken and plush carrots go into the cooking pot, you first have to do some shopping. Depending on how many collecting campaigns you have been involved in over the course of a parent's life, you can also instil the desired shopping behaviour in your children: "No, darling, I'd rather have the organic tomatoes from the region, not the ones from the discounter."
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Steinli, Stäckli, Schnäggehüsli
The triad of outdoor play. As timeless as children's fascination with all the things they can find on a walk in the woods, the discussion about whether they should take the five dozen stones and the small family of snails home with them has been an inevitable part of the game for generations. Or at least the branch that the child has been dragging behind him, panting, for half an hour. Just once. Just today. Pleaseee.
Lego
They would do it for their children, you can hear fathers mumbling, bent over, who then spend the night building a scenario of burning houses for their offspring to go with their new fire engine. The path to a child's heart is paved with colourful stones.
The classic
Even the greatest action figure can't compete with this: The toy that is currently in the hands of the other child. Because even if it's a Barbie doll without extremities or a worn plush panda - the most irresistible thing is what you don't have yourself. Also extremely popular: the plastic thing that a childless friend recently brought as a gift and which has been blaring hits from the 1980s and banging relentlessly against the commode door ever since. And, oh yes, flashes.
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A passionate journalist and mother of two sons who moved from Zurich to Lisbon with her husband in 2014. Does her writing in cafés and appreciates that life has been treating her well in general. <br><a href="http://uemityoker.wordpress.com/" target="_blank">uemityoker.wordpress.com</a>
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