Taming the Toys – A Steiner Approach to Simplifying Children’s Play

By Vanessa Fountain, West Coast Steiner School

For many parents, toys can be a source of ongoing stress within the home, from the purchase to the maintenance, management, and storage. We want to give our children the best start in life. We consciously or unconsciously want to give them at least what we’ve had, if not more and we want our children to know how loved they are. We want to educate them, perhaps entertain them, provide for them, and demonstrate our love. That’s a lot. Now mix in advertising for current toy fads, our own nostalgic toy memories, and the pressure our children can feel to own the newest cool toy. It’s a bit of a nightmare. 

How an Educator Looks at Toys

From an educator’s standpoint, less is most definitely more. When I look at toys, I’m looking through a few lenses.

1. Is it ethically sourced? Is it recyclable, reusable, and sustainable?
2. Is it open ended?
3. Does it promote interaction?
4. Does it support simple and elaborative imaginative play?
5. Does it support the highest ideals of what it means to be human?

Ideally, children’s toys should be ethically sourced and made from natural products that are able to be recycled and reused. Within a Steiner or Waldorf context our toys are made from natural fibres, wood and metals that are, where possible, handmade, and finished with natural treatments such as beeswax.

Why Open-Ended Toys Matter

Our toys are for the most part open ended, meaning, that they can keep up with the child’s imagination as the play naturally morphs from one scenario to another. A plastic action figure is just that – a plastic action figure. Sara Froden and Ann-Lova Rosell in their peer reviewed article on toys and imagination “Opening an Imaginative Space” share Iris Murdoch’s distinction between imagination and fantasy.

“Imagination implies openness and curiosity toward new ways of being and acting, and fantasy suggests a closed approach with few new possibilities”.

Albert Einstein said, “We cannot solve our problems with the same thinking we used when we created them.” Our children will need to develop capacities with which to remedy the problems of the world. By giving our children open ended toys, that trust the wisdom of their imagination and play that is untainted by media and adult thinking, then we allow these capacities to be developed and strengthened.

Rudolf Steiner goes further to suggest (and I paraphrase) that what is perceived through imagination, needs to then ripen within the soul until the pictures or impulses are ready to be understood and birthed into the world as the solutions to days’ challenges.

The Beauty of Waldorf Toys

Waldorf toys are beautiful in their construction and aesthetic. Perhaps because of the materials, or that they have been fashioned by hand, there is a warmth and gentleness to them. They allow for the needs of the child in parallel play and for the development of cooperative play. The open-endedness of the toys meets the needs of the child’s imagination. From a tower to a bridge, to a bone, to a fish or a bottle for a baby, a wooden block can be so many things to a child in play. Many notice the faceless hand made cloth dolls or standing puppets in a Waldorf kindergarten. The lack of a fixed facial expression means that the baby can be laughing, crying, singing or asleep depending on the needs of the child. The dolls and the standing puppets represent archetypes of humanity and as such are treated with reverence, with gentleness and compassion.

Inside a Steiner Kindergarten – Why Less Is More

People are often surprised at the small number of toys in a Steiner kindergarten. Some blocks, a kitchen and dolly corner, a basket of stones, pinecones, and leaves, standing puppets, a marble run and a basket of silk and cotton cloths. All for between 15 and 28 children depending on the ages. Each child does not need a toy. Children need to be held within a predictable rhythm and routine. They need an open-ended environment that is held with a modelling of goodness, beauty and truth but not controlled. This allowing, modelling, and fostering of a safe environment allows the imagination of the child to explore what it is to be human and to reimagine what is possible.

How Did We End Up With So Many Toys?

When discussing toys with parents over the years, they love the kindergarten and all that is in it but struggle with the reality of the toys at home. For some, the period between having their child and coming to school has already amassed a large quantity of toys both from the parents and all the gifts from beloved relatives. Often the result is a home filled with toys, that dominate the whole space, perhaps don’t align with parental philosophy, and provide more periods of conflict between family members than harmony.

But how did we get there?

• Gifts from loving, well-meaning relatives, friends, and birthday parties.
• For most of us we are time poor and consciously or unconsciously we can fall into the trap of trying to make up for our business with the purchase of toys.
• Christmas has become more of a toy arms race than anything else. A stroll through the shops a month before Christmas illustrates the pressure placed on parents to be a “good parent” and buy, buy, buy. No longer is it ok to purchase one, beautiful, truly meaningful present. There must be presents under the tree, in the sack, in the stocking and that’s not including presents from relatives. And what does it all really mean? How is it supporting your child’s development and becoming as a world citizen?
• Time and time again I hear parents bartering with their children for good behaviour with a toy as a reward. Don’t get me wrong, I’ve been there. I used to bribe my first born with a weekly purchase of a popular doll set (that I wish I’d had as a child) if she’d do her violin practice. Heads up, long term it doesn’t work. She is now a professional musician and music teacher but that’s in-spite of, not because of my dubious parenting and she hated playing the violin.

The True Cost of Too Many Toys

Can we imagine the toys that inhabit our homes as a sacred landscape of the child’s soul. If you could imagine the toys that surround you now, living within the dream world of your child, what would the qualities of that world be? Would it be a place of warmth, simplicity, welcome, beauty and gentleness or would it be formed, cold, rigid, and predetermined? Not subtle I know, but we are dealing with your child’s sacred imagination here.

The relentless purchase of the new, trains our children to be consumers. It congests not only our home environment but the inevitable cycle of out with the old and in with the new is straining our Earth to breaking point. Recently I was watching an episode of the Minimalists in which Joshua Fields Millburn and Ryan Nicodemus spoke about toys and children. They quoted a study that showed that American children make up less than 3% of the world’s children and yet they consume 40% of the toys produced in the world. Each child on average owns 300 toys but only plays with the same 12 toys. Whilst we are not America, anecdotally from my home visits over the last 20 odd years, I would say that the 300 + toys per child is correct. It’s a bit like our wardrobes, most of us have a closet full of clothes but only wear a small handful of outfits week in and week out. On a recent visit to the local rubbish dump I was mortified to see the sheer volume of plastic toys permeating the waste, and next to the plastic was the number of bicycles. I really wanted to cry. No longer do we refurbish bicycles, it’s cheaper to just go and buy a new one. Cheaper in the moment but not for our earth or our children’s future.