Toys to Teach

Play support at home 
I love that there are so many resources now for parents to learn how to support their kids through play. I remember when I first learned about this concept as a parent, it made so much sense to me. Why would it only be the therapists in an office who can use toys to teach kids? It only makes sense, those lessons would continue and deepen at home. 

What is a current struggle in your home? 
When I go to tell a story for my kids, I usually start by asking myself what a current difficulty is in our family. Taking turns? Transitions? Bath time? Sleep? Lately it has been taking turns and sibling dynamics. Then I’ll use the struggle to create the story. 

Toys in the story 
I’ll use the toys to tell the story of the current difficulty. I vary how I tell the stories. Sometimes the story shows the character use a coping skill, or not use a coping skill. I’ll pause and ask my kids for ideas on how to help the characters, I’ll model parental responses. 

Are your kids interested in the story?
Notice if your kids seem engaged in the story. My kids are most of the time captivated when we go to tell a story with toys. They also now like to create their own stories. If your kids don’t seem as interested, consider using different voices, having them be responsible for one of the characters, use props outside of the characters. 

Does not have to be “toys”
When telling a story, you can use any items you have nearby. They do not need to be toys. For example; after a harder morning of playing blocks together, when things were calm and we were coloring at the table, I decided to tell a story about the morning and looked for nearby objects. I grabbed colored pencils to represent mama and dada, 2 crayons to represent big kid and little kid and then blueberries to stack as blocks. They were just as engaged as they would be if I had used toys, maybe more so because it was new and out of the box. 

Validate the character’s struggle
Use the story telling as an opportunity to validate your child’s struggle through acknowledging that the character’s difficulty makes sense. “Of course saying goodbye is hard, we miss each other," or, “it makes sense you don’t want to come inside, you’re having so much fun outside.” This reminds your kid they are not alone and there is nothing wrong with them. 

Use toy play to process a difficult experience 
If your child had a hard experience; an injury, a move, rejection; using toys to tell the story can be an effective way to help your child create a coherent narrative about the event. For children, they need help understanding events, what they mean and don’t mean. They are great observers but not great interpreters, so often they interpret hardship as though they are bad or they can’t trust themselves. So we can use story to help them create accurate narratives. I used this after one of my kids had a scary fall to help her also hold onto the supports she had immediately following the fall. 

Use toy play to prepare for a transition or change
If there is a change on the horizon; saying goodbye to pacifier, milk overnight, doctor appointment; you can use storytelling to help prepare your child through information giving and answering questions your child may have through the different characters in your story. We have utilized this to help prepare for a first dentist appointment, separation anxiety, sleep structure changes. 

Use toy play to model struggle coping skills
Toys can mirror struggle for your kids and options on how to cope. This is a way to introduce or deepen your child’s understanding of different options for coping. You can also model your parental responses through the caregiver characters as well. Normalizing how you support your kids, things you’d like them to know about their distress and reminders of struggle being normal and not lasting forever. 

Grab a toy to help you in the moment 
If I am trying to wrangle my kid to come inside, get in the bath, go to the car, come upstairs (as so much of parenting can be!), sometimes I will take a moment to look around and see what’s available to do the talking for me. Once, one of my kids was running away from getting in the bath, so I looked around and saw a picture of a whale on the table. Score! (I hoped.) I grabbed it, and had it talk to them about how much they loved bubbles and swimming and couldn’t wait to get in the bath and my kid immediately trotted right into the bathroom. 

Sometimes, it’s just more effective coming from a whale on paper than us, amirite?!