COMMENT | Too many toys when they can make their own

COMMENT | Growing up in a kampung, sticks and tin cans were our drum kits. Nipah leaves and cardboards were our hideout shacks. A stout jambu branch was carved into a gasing, and green bamboo stem a popper gun. We were seldom bored.

Our hand-made playthings were as durable as our knack for recycling - and toying with what we could find. That was our distant world of relative privations from a child’s playroom of overabundance today, scattered with China-made coloured plastics and video games.

Studies of how playing with toys affect a child's development have shown that less is more. Fewer toys make for more sustained imaginative play and creativity. Piles and piles of toys tend to distract. And, toddlers ultimately switch toys with shorter attention span and time of play.

Hence, a parent’s common complaint: “My kids have so many toys, yet they only play with the same old one.”