Why you should break open your toys
What if you sat with your child and deliberately broke open the toy?
Do you remember the first time you ever broke one of your toys? It’s a heartwrenching moment. In my case, there was no one else to blame. Much to my parents’ dismay, I enjoyed making these huge car pile-ups, all around the house.
Soon, the wheels were coming off, the axles broke, paint chipping off. And one day they either snap or stop moving entirely and are declared ‘broken’.
I should have seen it coming. But I never did.
If this happened to you, depending on the circumstance, you were either reprimanded, ignored, or told that ‘we’ll buy you another one’. The fourth option, of course, is that you sat down and tried to fix it. Very rare.
I propose something a lot more challenging. What if you sat with your child and deliberately broke open the toy? This may seem like a bad idea for any number of reasons, but there’s something magical that happens in our brains when you break toys open.
You look closely
The moment you begin to try and open up a toy deliberately your child will start to look at tiny details that we often overlook. Like a seam, tiny screws of odd shapes, different types of materials.
You also start to categorize things - this is part of the head or this is part of the body etc.
You encounter complexity
Once open, you see different inner mechanisms. Some pulleys, motors, screws, plastic parts, wires.
Hopefully, at this point, you’ve broken at least one tiny piece and can’t figure out what to do with it. You’ve also probably found weird amounts of dust, hair, and all kinds of things lodged inside your toy!
What you’re doing now is Tinkering!
You find opportunity
At this point some perspectives usually start to change, you look at the toy differently, perhaps a new point of view.
Now, you can encourage a lot of ‘what-if’ questions. Not the kind that’s vague and abstract, but what-if’s that you can try right away.
What if you removed a piece, would the toy still work? What if you put square blocks instead of round tires? What if I paint the insides yellow? Bring in a sense of whimsy here.
Try moving some parts around and see what you make!
On the other side when you eventually glue it all together and create something new:
You feel accomplished!
In this process, children notice that they are not just passive consumers, but active creators of the world around them. This increases their sense of agency, setting them up for lifelong success.
The toy you just bought them is eventually going to break, so why not use that opportunity earlier to take a peek inside?
Here are some references and resources that you’ll surely enjoy:
What’s inside a pull-back car: (The music is creepy so you can just mute the video)
Along with making you can also inspire kids to give and gift more - https://www.gse.harvard.edu/news/uk/19/12/gifts-educate-and-inspire
The agency by design framework I have explained above is by Project Zero at my alma mater, the Harvard Graduate School of Education - http://www.agencybydesign.org/explore-the-framework
Check out this show called ‘The Toys that Made us” for great stories and histories of famous toys - https://www.imdb.com/title/tt7053920/
If new ideas and quirky ways of understanding the world excite you then check out what-if studio and littleinventors.
If you end up opening up a toy and discovering something cool inside, let me know!
- Prasanth