Advertisement

Parentology: Drowning in your kid’s toys?

Share

This article was originally on a blog post platform and may be missing photos, graphics or links. See About archive blog posts.


In David Shannon’s excellent book ‘Too Many Toys’ (pictured above), he tells the story of a boy named Spencer who has way too many toys. It’s a children’s book of course, but as a mother, I learned a lesson from it: Parents don’t necessarily have control of how many toys they have in their home. Spencer gets toys from his parents and his grandparents, his aunts, his uncles, even from his cousin Drew. He also gets them from friends on his birthday, and on their birthdays (in goody bags). He gets toys at the drive-through, at school ‘for having lots of Peace Person Points,’ and at the doctor’s office when he doesn’t squirm. How can a parent keep up with it all?

In this installment of Parentology, I take a look at what parents are doing to control the number of toys in their home. Can you keep friends and family from giving your child gifts? Should you even try?

Advertisement

Read the full story here, and then let us know if you have good ideas on how to stem the tide of toys, or strong feelings on whether toy acquisition should be limited at all.

-- Deborah Netburn(The Blue Sky Press/Scholastic); credit: Bob Chamberlin / Los Angeles Times


Advertisement