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2021-12-13 ¿Y qué hago con esa larga lista de juguetes para Santa Claus..?

Ya estamos cerca; viene esa fecha en que algunos niños aprovechan para pedir de tooodo a Santa Claus… ¿Qué hacer con esa larga lista de juguetes que no queremos comprarles? Te comparto pensamientos y sugerencias para discernir qué hacer, cómo hablar de antemano con los niños y mantener la paz y la cordura en tu casa!

SOBRE todo niños pequeños… JUGUETES

Hombres siempre juegan, solo que sus juguetes cambian de tamaño

I've had a couple of conversations, three or four conversations actually with parents in these last couple of weeks about children's requests for Christmas lists and how to respond to those. In the Simplicity parenting way of raising a child we're trying to be as careful as we can about **toy overload** but one point really came up in these conversations and that is children who were requesting certain toys that were more what I would call merchandising than they were toys; they are

**1.** **toys that come directly from TV shows** with characters from TV shows, even if the kids don't watch much TV they hear about it from other kids and there's you know there's a high-value when I having just that truck that comes just from that

You know there's a high value on having just that truck that comes just from that program or just that character that comes just from Star Wars, and many many other movies that have merchandising attached to them

**2.** other kids will be asking for **toys that are very very specific.** now my experience over the years in helping parents declutter has been very interesting in the sense that those kind of toys, the merchandising toys, and the toys that are very fixed that can basically just do one thing play one or very few roles because there's so **preset** because the images is attached to them are so pre-formed, those toys when a year or two down the track we begin to declutter in a room, they are so often the toys that get discarded first. The children lose interest in them quickly and they when the fad moves on and other kids at school or a kindergarten are not playing with them anymore and now there are new ads that their friends or even themselves are being subjected to, so that toy is **no longer cool** but most of all there's **nothing much you can do with a toy that is very formed and preset**.

**3.** it has limited engagement for a child; a child NO SE ENTREGA¿ NO SE VUELCA into one of those kinds of toys usually they're **plastic and molded and very very detailed** or they're **battery operated** and you press a button and they do stuff which is fun sort of, but you sit back and watch it do stuff you know there's not a lot of Engagement HISTORIA DEL HIJO DE CARIN BLOCK

and when kids engage with a toy, that's **when they invest in a toy,** and that's when that toy becomes very dear to them; it becomes an essential part of creativity of innovation and they can adapt it to this and that and this and that and frankly that's **myelinating the limbic system** partly, in their brain, that's the Co-operative creative part of their of their brain they need to be laying down those Pathways and fixed mercancía preset molded toys a really pretty low on the list in my way of thinking when it comes to those toys now

what do you say to a child who is all into that piece of merchandising? I guess I'll call it a toy, but what do you say? one of the things I think we can can creatively lean into is **our family values** and you know the listeners to this podcast will know that I often talked about that you know that that I'm **not a big fan of child-centered homes** where child requests a toy and we do what we can to provide it I think it's a child centered home is frankly too much responsibility to put on the shoulders of a child.

what I feel is so important is that we have value centered homes that's a deep well that we can all nurture ourselves from and in this case the value is a very simple one and that's that we have **toys that can do many things** so for a young child requesting merchandising and very fixed preset toy… one can say to a child to You know, in our family **we have toys that can do many thing**s; yes, it can be just that truck or it can be just that person if you wanted to be… we can make clothes for it to be just like Yoda or whoever it is and you can basically say to a child how **lucky t**hey are to have toys that can be many things and that's what we do as a family. now move us away from our **judging other families** and what they may wish to to buy the kids and it roots us firmly in what we do so that on the day when that toy is given there's not a lot of disappointment the child hasn't developed a mental picture of of that piece of merchandising

but it might be for example if they want a sudden castle from a certain you know Disney program or whatever it is that the **blocks are presented** with which we can build a castle but you know it might be something might add a few special little things you might look at that toy online usually sold one of these massive department stores and get a few little cubes and maybe ahead of time you can make some cardboard cutout and just color them in and and have an echo of what they were really had in in their mind's eyes for that toy or if it's some kind of character from some TV thing it usually is that sort of stuff that maybe you spend a little bit of time and you cut out some of the clothes that you and your child can stitch together on the day of gift-giving that is so pleasurable you sitting together in your stitching together the clothing that is just like what they'd imagined or even better, cuz we made it.

Si piden tecnología…. Como siempre, de tus valores, convicciones

En nuestra casa no pedimos tecnologia ni dispositivos para Navidad (a Santa Claus)...
EN NUESTRA CASA, en nuestra familia

Eso es algo que decidimos los papás y ya sabes lo que pensamos

No importa lo que hagan los demás

No los estamos juzgando, no nos estamos comparando con ellos…

Mejor incluirlos en un impulso de DAR

Dar regalos a niños menos afortunados

Dar galletas a los vecinos, a los ancianos,

Y sbore todo, infundir el espíritu de la Navidad y el Adviento…

No dejar que lo comercial nos ganen la batalla!

THEA y San Nicolás