Creative play in kids entails not just imagination but the aid of toys that make the play more exciting and realistic. Sure, educational toys and games are good but I believe there’s more to life that just learning the ABCs and the 123s.

Playing should be fun, for in playing, children able to act out their thoughts, feelings and deeply seated emotions. Play houses, kitchen utensils, baby dolls and strollers, tea party sets, dress up accessories and even make up kits,mostly for the girls. For the boys there are cars in cities, farm animals, rocket ships, costumes, swords, guns, toy soldiers and their war paraphernalia, rocking horse, dress up accessories and other toys that make the imagination run wild and the play more fun and exciting.

Some other toys would be hand puppets, stuffed toys, blocks and other educational games. But how do parents choose the toys that their children will play with? Do you give in to the toy that they want even if the toy is dangerous (dangerous looking or real dangerous) OR unsafe OR expensive OR outrageous?

Would you let your little boy play with that kind of toy gun in a play area in the photo below where my two younger children there are other children playing too?

I am not saying that having toy guns is not good. Why, my two younger children each have one set of cop guns with paraphernalia of badges, handcuffs, compass and knives that they enjoy playing with, but only inside the house. And the guns? They were taught never, never to direct these guns to each other, even if these are only toys. They just have to look for other targets besides each other.

Playing is not just about having fun too. It is also a way to teach our children about safety, about awareness of other people, other children and of compliance to the standards that are applicable to ourselves and to others too.

Or maybe its just how we discipline our children but I hope we are doing right.

Update:

This post was written not so long ago and was just sitting in the drafts, waiting to be published. Last Monday, we saw that there would be a Defense and Sporting Arms Show in the mall where I and the two younger kids for my husband after work. When they asked what the show was and we explained it was about guns, they got excited and asked if they can go. Hmm…maybe not yet. We figured now is not the right time yet.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, July 15th, 2008 at 11:00 pm and is filed under Bits and Pieces, Just For Fun, Lessons in Life, Parenting, Snapshots, Teaching Techniques. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.