Having children and having toys certainly goes hand-in-hand. We need to have fun and engaging age-appropriate toys around to support development and keep us from going crazy over long days with our young children. But the real question we ask ourselves as parents is: which toys add value to our child’s development and which toys just add clutter to our lives? A well-curated toy subscription kit is an investment in your child’s development and in supporting parents to create a calm, fun environment to engage in the high-quality play that is so vital to physical, cognitive, and social development in early childhood.
Here are the top three reasons to consider investing in a toy subscription kit.
(1) Reduce mental load.
The mental load that parents face these days is real. The number of decisions we make on a daily basis about our children seems to just grow and grow, from what they should eat to how they sleep and everything in between. A well-designed toy subscription box takes one major set of decisions off parents’ lists.
Toy Exchange Club has already invested all the time and research needed to create a carefully curated set of toys that are fun and support development. This frees up the energy that you would have spent scrolling through websites or searching in stores trying to decide which toys will provide value. You can instead spend that time engaged in fun, anxiety-free play with your child.
Basically, you can let them take care of the R&D for this part of your life!
(2) Mindfully engage the whole family in child development.
Sometimes life is so busy that it’s best to divide and conquer in a household: you do the laundry and I’ll make the meals. But when it comes to being aware of the important milestones in our child’s development, it really pays to get everyone involved. With their toy subscription box, everyone in the house can quickly and easily get on the same page.
When a set of toys arrives only once every three months, you gain major efficiency: you’ll be much more likely to sit down together for a few minutes (which is all it takes!) to look through the contents and identify the skills and abilities that the toys will be helping you foster in your child over the coming months. Everyone will be up to speed on the kinds of exciting skills your child will be developing and on how to engage in play that supports that development.
You can also use this opportunity to keep an eye on your child’s progress and raise any questions with your health care provider if you notice that your child is struggling with particular elements, like some of the fine motor skills required for the toys at different stages.
(3) Simplify your play space.
Our households can get out of control with stuff, especially when a baby or young child is added to the mix. Even the most spartan of us sees our list of belongings increase seemingly exponentially when a baby comes along – you can’t avoid the items needed for safety, sleep, and eating. But toys are also necessary if you want to maintain your sanity, and a good set of toys is the perfect tool for facilitating the development of basic physical, social, and cognitive milestones.
Toy Exchange Club’s rental toy subscription kit provides a manageable set of items that meets the needs of a child’s creativity and curiosity, while avoiding the pile-up of toys that they have outgrown, or have just ended up not being a hit. Again, this frees up your mental and physical energy: there’s no need to spend a day every three or four months going through stacks of toys to figure out which ones you should sell, give away, or contribute to a landfill. With very little effort, you’ll have a simple, organized, and calm space where you and your child can focus on play and nobody feels buried in stuff.
Just like adults, children thrive in chaos-free spaces, where they aren’t overwhelmed with too many options and where their parent also feels calm and relaxed.
Written by: Stephanie Denison, PhD.
Stephanie Denison is an Advisor to Toy Exchange Club and an Associate Professor of Psychology at the University of Waterloo, specializing in cognitive development in early childhood. We are so grateful to have her expertise inform our program. Because of her we know each toy and toy box will meet the developmental needs of your child at every age.