What do you think about toys that are too advanced for dc? (long)

[deannanb]

DS turned 1 a few weeks ago and someone gave us a shape sorter. He loves the shapes... I've actually found them all over the house. He likes to reach in and pull out the shapes. I will find the correct shape and put it in... he will push it all the way in with his finger. I say "this is the orange flower."

Try taking it out and playing with her - one shape at a time - finding the correct hole for her. Then put it away when you are done - especially if she is using it as a step stool.

I don't think it is too young to start using it.

[Judegirl]

Thank you for the reponse...I just wanted to clarify before others respond:

I'm not so much concerned about how to use this toy. She can put them in the correct holes without a problem. It's the conversation I'm concerned about...both with her about the colors vs. shapes vs. size, and here; I was interested in a general discsssion about perspectives on learning and toys, pressure and encouragement, trial and error, etc. :)

Thanks!
Jude

[kedss]

A couple of months ago, I bought DS a puzzle that is all musical instruments that play their sound when you get the piece in. DH thought it was too advanced for him, but I wanted him to learn how puzzles worked. When we play with it, I watch him put the pieces in(they are one piece each) he works hard at trying to make it fit, and if he's struggling with it, I help him.

He is also learning differnt parts of his body, like ears and nose and mouth. I will ask him where his nose is and if he pulls on his ears, I gently show him where his nose is, or show him where mine is. I just started doing this this week, I had no idea he understood as much as he does. I think its important just to try things out and if it becomes frustrating for you or your DD, try another way of explaining something or just wait for a bit.

HtH

[MarisaSF]

>Do you worry about things like this, or
>just let them play with them however they can and make more
>sense of them later?

The latter, for most things. I like to see how Jazz plays with certain toys now and it is interesting to see how her play evolves. Ex: shape sorter. We used to use it as a drum, then we took the lid off to put the pieces in and ut without "sorting." Now she does the circles and stars, but can't quite get the triangles and other shapes. Someday it will be interesting to count, name the colors and shapes, etc. This way, we get a lot of life from each toy. I don't look at any toy as specifically for "education." I just see them as toys and we use them for fun. If there's any "learning value," it's incidental in our house. I'm reminded of this book I have called "Trees make the best mobiles," but I digress..

I do think kiddos like to attach names to things. I'm not sure what Rory's toy looks like, but can you teach her matching. Like "Here's a blue square. Let's try to find the blue square hole. Oh, There it is!"?

Can you take away the "harder" shapes for now?

[barbarhow]

We kind of do what Marisa describes in her first sentence. That said-I did put the train tracks away for a few months because he would move the tracks around and just could not finesse that back together and would get so incredibly frustrated that he would end up in tears. The trains are now back out-he is having a ball rearranging all the tracks and making roads under blocks and stuff without the same frustration level.
So I think that yes-I think it is a good idea if the toy is too advanced to take it away until later-unless as Marisa described they can find another nonfrustrating fun way to play with the toy. Throwing the tracks across the room just wasn't working for me. LOL.
Barbara-mom to Jack 3/27/03, a Red Sox fan
and Anna 5/12/05, my little Yankee fan!

[MarisaSF]

Ah, I understood your initial post, but didn't want to get too philosophical in answer to your specific questions, but I do love talking about these things. and I'm not a pressure kinda person, I do try to point out when I see her doing things well.

Anyway, as I said above, I lean towards toys that can be played with in different ways. Jazz loves puzzles, but can't get all the pieces in very well yet. She would be very frustrated if that were the only value in the puzzle, so instead we focus on the pictures. Ex: this is a horse, the horse says,"Neigh!"

I'm nak, so hope this makes sense. :)

[lizamann]

Hmmm, sounds like she is asking you the questions rather than the other way around? If this is the case, I would take that as interest on her part to learn colors and would have no problem telling her the correct color. Sounds like she is instinctively drilling herself, which I've seen in DD many times when learning things like shapes, colors, and body parts. If she holds up a red block and says "Blue?" I would say, "No, that's red. But this one over here is blue!" If, however, colors is something the PARENT has introduced and is trying to "teach" but being met with confusion, then I would hold back. I am personally all for waiting for the child to show signs of interest and then doing what is basically "asked" of me, instead of imposing a lesson on them. You won't find flashcards in our house, LOL!

About the shape sorter, I think you can still use it, but maybe focus on only one aspect for now, either colors or shapes. Or just stack them into towers LOL! I guess it depends on your philosophy about these things. I would have no problem building castles out of a shape sorter, but Maria Montessori would have a fit if a kid turned a shaping toy into an airplane LOL.

Edited to add that I agree with Andrie about exposing kids to things over their heads. If they don't get it they don't get it and that's fine. But eventually they are going to get interested in it and start asking, and things will sink in. But I don't ever see myself really drilling things into her head.

For example, dd doesn't know any letters other than "o." I know she is perfectly capable of learning her letters right now, based on other things she has learned at her prompting (like internal body organs!), but I have chosen not to push her. Of course we have letters lying all around the house, in the form of magnets, bath stickies, etc. But I am waiting for her to show interest in discriminating them. She points out letters in unexpected places all the time, and even points out "Chinese letters", but as for knowing her p's from her q's, that will come when she shows an interest.

Edited AGAIN as I think about this more (one of my fave topics - learning, brains, teaching, and KIDS - former science teacher here): in thinking about the letters, I guess I would say that I do test the waters every now and then to see if she's ready, so I'm not being completely passive in waiting for this to happen. Just yesterday we were drawing on her chalkboard, and she wanted me to trace a letter with chalk, and I said "OK lets trace this E." A few minutes later, I asked, "what's this letter?" pointing at the E. She couldn't tell me, so I know to lay off that for a while and ask again in a few weeks maybe.

Sorry if I've gone OT, but I'm enjoying this thread!

[Vajrastorm]

>Thank you for the reponse...I just wanted to clarify before
>others respond:
>
>I'm not so much concerned about how to use this toy. She can
>put them in the correct holes without a problem. It's the
>conversation I'm concerned about...both with her about the
>colors vs. shapes vs. size, and here; I was interested in a
>general discsssion about perspectives on learning and toys,
>pressure and encouragement, trial and error, etc. :)
>
>Thanks!
>Jude

If a toy is frustrating, we put it away. I know that isn't what your question was about.

I give dd many toys that are too advanced for her. Some she finds other ways to play with, and some she needs my help with. Kids want to learn. Not in the flashcards sense, but children are drawn towards learning new ideas and skills. My philosophy is to expose dd to things that are way over her head, because I never know how much she'll get. I don't have any expectations that she'll understand everything I say, and I don't pressure her. I offer information, and she absorbs whatever is meaningful and relevant at the time.

I think if Rory seeks out conversations about shapes and colors, it is because she hungers to master the information. As long as you are negative about it, I don't think she'll suffer for being "corrected." It sounds like she wants the information from you. You aren't the one pushing the color-shape agenda. She is. ;-)

[Judegirl]

You're right - she's the one pushing the agenda. I'm just the big weenie who hates to see her look completely befuddled when she's holding two squares but one is yellow and one is orange and saying "Yellow?? Orange??" about both. It seems awfully complicated to me - she wants to understand what they both have in common, and I've sat for hours breaking them up into muli-colored piles of squares vs cirlces, and multi-shaped blue things vs yellow things...I know she'll get there, and I know she wants to, but I get concerned about what it might do to her confidence if she keeps getting it wrong.

She's more a "shrug and do something else" if you don't get it (like her Daddy) kind of kid and I'd like to encourage a more "try and try again" energy (like her Mommy, LOL!) I've found that she's more likely to persist with things she can get right some of the time and more likely to wander off when she's not getting it right. But that's probably okay too. :)

Jude

[aliceinwonderland]

I have a nice Haba toy, a nice wood pushtoy, a nice learning cube (all wood) that sit in the corner and he rarely plays with them...What *does* he play with??

A metal bar (part of the dissasembled pack and play, water bottles he takes out of their case and tries to hit with his bar?? Is he practicing his golf moves already??

All i know is that my child does NOT play with toys, but can happily sit for an hour to watch me make pasta. So I do not even try too hard anymore :)
We were going to get him a kitchen, but then realised, a toddler table and chairs, and all the kirchen toddler utensils they sell at IKEA are far more likely to be played with...

[Judegirl]

LOL Beth! I agree with you - we're big on multi-purpose toys around here, and we did build a lot of towers with the shape sorter too...and everything ought to be airplanes, IMO!

Your post made me realize that part of this is just my ignorance about how to help her understand things that seem complicated to me. She is very interested in understanding things that have a lot of levels, and I will try...but then I get sad because I can see how badly she wants to understand and I don't know how to help her, especially when the way she sees it makes perfect sense.

This particular example will soon be behind us, but there will be many more. I need to get better at seeing her struggle to understand things - I don't want to avoid struggles for her, but I think my tolerance is lower than I expected it to be.

Also, I'm much better at watching her struggle to *accomplish* something than I am at watching her struggle to *understand* something - they're very different to me. I have more faith that if she tries long enough, she will accomplish a task, but sometimes I wonder if she just *can't* yet understand the concept she's wrestling with.

I'm so glad you guys respond to these posts - I always come out of them with more awareness of where my parenting impulses are coming from. Thank you!

Jude

[August Mom]

>Hmmm, sounds like she is asking you the questions rather than
>the other way around? If this is the case, I would take that
>as interest on her part to learn colors and would have no
>problem telling her the correct color. Sounds like she is
>instinctively drilling herself, which I've seen in DD many
>times when learning things like shapes, colors, and body
>parts. If she holds up a red block and says "Blue?" I would
>say, "No, that's red. But this one over here is blue!" If,
>however, colors is something the PARENT has introduced and is
>trying to "teach" but being met with confusion, then I would
>hold back. I am personally all for waiting for the child to
>show signs of interest and then doing what is basically
>"asked" of me, instead of imposing a lesson on them. You
>won't find flashcards in our house, LOL!

I agree with this. If she's showing an interest in colors, you should go with it. I see nothing wrong with saying "This block is the orange one, here is the yellow one." However, I would then do some other activities that involve colors if this is an interest to her. I would get a book about colors, or trying coloring and talk about crayon colors or Play-Doh colors or something like that.

[g-mama]

The other thing to consider is that you're able to focus a lot on this because she's your only child. Benjamin has access to toys that 5yo's play with and I cannot help that. He's always had stuff around that is way over his head and he just plays with it in his own way and by the time he's "ready" for it, he'll probably already be over it because he's been seeing it around for his whole life. I know that doesn't answer your question but it's just to say that my ds is fine and I really see no difference in the two boys and my first ds was always given age-appropriate toys because we wouldn't seek out toys for 2yo's until he was 2. KWIM?




Kristen
Paolo 11-00
Benjamin 8-03
and a *THIRD BOY* coming in December '05

[mamicka]

Maybe only bring out only all the shapes of one color at a time for a while. Or all the squares, etc.

Allison

[Judegirl]

I was curious about how others handle this. I don't like to give Rory toys that require *constant* correction to learn, because I beliive that undermines confidence to say "That one's red, not blue" all the time (no matter how positively I say it) - if she's not ready to get even some of her questions right, then I feel like maybe she's not ready for the toy.

She had a shape sorter toy that varied by color, shape AND size - she didn't know colors, shapes, or bigger or smaller, and I thought it was too much for her to really be useful as a learning toy. She kept trying to categorize but there were too many variables for her and she seemed confused when she tried to talk about them. (And she kept trying to use the thing as a stepstool....)

So I put it away while she was asleep awhile ago and I'm thinking about leaving it out for her, unwrapped, on Christmas morning.

General questions: Do you worry about things like this, or just let them play with them however they can and make more sense of them later? How do you answer questions like "Red?" "Square?" when they're incorrect? (Rory doesn't do a whole lot of playing wihtout talking about the things and trying to name them.)

Specific question: Do you think 20 months is a good age for a more complex shape-sorter toy, or is that still too young? She's starting to know colors, but maybe still it's a lot for her - green square vs. green circle vs. blue square vs. blue triangle...what do you guys think? I don't want her to be too frustrated too much of the time, and I don't want to put it away again. :)

Thanks!
Jude

[Marisa6826]

Jude-

What about getting Rory some books about colours and shapes. That way, she can concentrate on one aspect of the puzzle at a time.

I know that even though Sophie knows her colours, she still likes to go back through the books pretty often and look at the pictures.

-m

[stella]

"shrug and do something else" is probably less about her temperament (and good luck trying to encourage her one way or the other - they have the most amazing ability to be their own little people no matter what I have tried to teach.) and more about her attention span at this age.

I would let her play. She doesn't need to know her colors and shapes precisely - just answer her questions "Yellow? "orange square. this triangle is yellow!" and she will get it all wrong about 100 times, but she's having fun with her mom and that's what is important to her. Not having there be a right and wrong.

It's probably a perfect toy for her right now!

Claire

[KBecks]

Just wanted to say that failure is a huge part of learning, and it's natural for a child to make mistakes along the way.

So don't stress that Rory is asking and pointing to incorrect things. I'd suggest you gently show her what is the correct answer to her question, and as others have said, if she looks tired or frustrated, then do something else. It seems she has curiosity and wants to know.

I still make mistakes all the time and learn from them. I feel like it's when we are afraid of making mistakes that we stall out in our growth.

And, as far as giving children toys that seem advanced. I agree with others that there may be other imaginative ways to explore and play with such toys (as long as safety is not an issue). I think of what has been said about what a small part of our brains we use. Why not let your child explore at will and see what happens?

Have fun!

[elliput]

I have really enjoyed reading this thread, as I have been debating the types and levels of toys to keep around the house right now. DD has access to many, many toys in her daycare class - some are geared toward 18+ and she does play with them. This helps to re-enforce my thought that it is beneficial to have more advanced toys around for at least the exploration process. Thanks, Jude, for bring up the topic!