Used children's toys are fraught with danger: Newsland – comments, discussions and news discussions.

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Today, there is such a variety of children's toys on the counter that parents' eyes simply run wild. But if everything is clear with intricate construction sets, naturalistic dolls and soft toys depicting animals, then the question of plastic monsters, toy vampires, plush microbes and frightening robots still remains open. And, when a child reaches out for another strange new product, moms and dads invariably wonder: is it worth buying such a scary toy for a child?

A little history

Toys depicting evil and scary characters have existed at all times. Despite the fact that these fantastic monsters look cuter than their modern followers, they still portray the same negative heroes.

In the days of our ancestors, scary toys, devoid of detailed parts, gave scope to children's imagination. Today they have become just a way to attract attention. However, this does not mean that such toys do not have any meaning for children.

How the government helps parents identify harmful toys

All toys sold within the state undergo mandatory certification.

The analysis begins with a socio-psychological examination. It is at this stage that products with dubious emotional, sadistic or sexual implications are excluded.
After this, the safety of a particular toy is assessed. A typical sample is checked for combustion rate, brightness of color, presence of small and loose parts, toxicity of the material, and likelihood of injury. The examination includes about 100 characteristics, so not a single harmful toy will receive a certificate.

How to avoid harmful toys: a short cheat sheet for child safety

We buy only certified items in the store. We watch how the child uses your gift. A huge number of toys is also harmful. This is how children level out the value of things. Well, the most useful toys are those that parents made with their own hands. In addition to their developmental meaning, they are charged with a positive emotional meaning.

The difference between good and evil

Another important role of scary toys is their influence on the moral education of children. It is always easier for any child to understand the difference between good and evil using illustrative examples. Any hero is a collective image, and a toy depicting him carries the inherent qualities of this character and models a certain life situation that the child will have to face in real life. In traditional fairy tales, good always triumphs over evil, because any negative character can be fooled, and positive heroes do this using such qualities as courage, dexterity, and resourcefulness. It is these qualities that play with such toys develop in children. The behavior of negative characters is predictable, which means that the child can play out his fears. But, it is worth noting that we are talking here specifically about traditional scary toys, which represent Baba Yaga, the gray wolf, the Serpent Gorynych, the dragon, and the pirate, familiar to us from childhood. With modern repellent toys, things are different.

Modern scary toys

Modern toys that represent fantastic animals, monsters, vampires, transformers, cyborgs and dolls with strange skin color, hair and facial expressions look very naturalistic and undoubtedly attract attention, but in fact all these technical “bells and whistles” make such toys too complex for children to understand. If adults can understand what, for example, a biorobot or a mutant is, then a small child who has just begun to get acquainted with the world around him is completely unclear who or what it is. And as a result, playing with such toys gives the child an incorrect idea of the world.

Separately, it is worth mentioning the psychological aspect of such “masterpieces.” Many modern scary characters (for example, Batman, Spider-Man, Ninja Turtles) are positioned as positive heroes, despite their strange and repulsive appearance. In cartoons and films, the nature of these characters actually remains unexplored. According to the creators, these heroes fight evil. But how do they do it? Exclusively through a fight! Such “positive” heroes practically do not show any internal qualities of character, similar to the classic characters mentioned above, in their adventures, which means that the child develops the conviction that there is only one way to fight evil, and that is with fists! Thus, playing with such toys turns into simple manipulation and does not carry any special meaning.

And the most paradoxical thing in all this is that positive and negative characters in modern films and cartoons look equally strange, and the hero’s belonging to one or another camp is determined solely by the plot. In addition, in some stories that have several parts, initially good heroes suddenly become evil and go over to the side of their enemies. All this leads to the child erasing the difference between good and bad, good and evil. And for the formation of a healthy personality, it is important that this division is obvious. To summarize, we can say that many modern scary toys are harmful because they do not explain moral principles to children, and sometimes even provoke cruelty and aggression in them. And before you buy your baby a strange or scary toy, you should take into account his age.

Up to 3 years

Up to three years of age, children are still at the very beginning of their journey of understanding the world around them; they are very easily frightened, but they have not yet learned to cope with their fear, so buying scary toys for such little ones is strictly prohibited. Panic, anxiety and fear in a child can be caused not only by the appearance of such a “monster” in the nursery, but also by any toy that makes too loud sounds or is very large in size. Children during this period are very sensitive, and sometimes suffer from nightmares even after watching a cartoon with a scary character. At this age, you need to remove from their visibility any objects and even harmless toys that frighten him with their mere sight or sound.

From 3 to 6 years

At this age, children are already learning to “act out” the impressions they receive from getting to know the world around them, and begin to try on the roles of positive and negative characters. A rich imagination allows them to play out with toys the plots of fairy tales they have heard and cartoons they have watched. At this time, the child develops a concept of the difference between good and evil, he needs appropriate toys, so you can already buy them for him. However, the choice should be approached with all responsibility: you should use only classic characters who, in cartoons and fairy tales, represent an integral psychological image with their own character and behavior. You should not constantly store scary toys in the children's room; it is better to put them away and take them out only during play, and be sure to observe how the baby interacts with them. Children of this age can already repeat in the gameplay not only plots familiar to them, but also their own experienced emotions, so such a game should always take place under the supervision of adults, so that parents can notice the child’s internal state in time and, if necessary, help him overcome his own negative feelings in the game , fears, resentment, aggression.

From 6 years

By the age of six, a child has already developed voluntary memory, imagination and attention. His games turn into their own fictional stories, where he is interested in the interactions between the characters. For the most part, scary toys for children of this age do not pose a danger, since children already know how to project their own experiences and emotions onto them, and endow them with certain character qualities at will.

Modern children from the age of six begin to be drawn like a magnet to transformers, cyborgs, and strange dolls, so they most likely will not be able to do without them. If possible, make sure that your child’s nursery is not dominated by frightening characters - let them be accompanied by kind and harmless characters. Try to ensure that the game with “negative” heroes does not turn into continuous struggle, fights and murders. You can offer your child more harmless scenes for play, in which frightening toys will act as unfortunate or sick people in need of care - this will allow the child to avoid excessive aggression and cruelty.

Toys made of phosphorus and PPC

PVC or polyvinyl chloride is a material that is something intermediate between rubber and plastic.

Toys made of polyvinyl chloride contain phthalates, which have a negative effect on the liver, kidneys, immunity, endocrine, reproductive and nervous systems, and provoke asthma and cancer. Phthalates are easily released from PVC and become airborne, allowing them to penetrate the skin and lungs when inhaled. Kids love to taste everything, so phthalates also enter the child’s body when they are swallowed.

Modern luminous stickers, balls, bracelets, helicopters, animal figurines are made on the basis of reflectors or luminescent coating. But cheap Chinese toys still contain phosphorus, which makes them glow. Phosphorus compounds provoke the occurrence of diseases of the cardiovascular system, dysfunction of the liver, digestive organs, and adversely affect metabolism. To avoid becoming the owner of a harmful toy, it is recommended to ask for a certificate when purchasing and purchase products only from well-known manufacturers with a good reputation.

A quality toy must have markings. If the certificate has a triangle with the number “3” inside, the inscriptions PVC, VINIL, then the material from which the toy is made is polyvinyl chloride (PVC). Often toys produced in China do not have such inscriptions.
Plastic that is not hazardous to health is cold and hard. Very rarely do PVC toys have a similar consistency; more often they are very pleasant to the touch and soft.

Psychologist's opinion

Anastasia Vyalykh : “The behavior of parents is of great importance in a child’s perception of scary toys. Firstly, mom and dad should be wary if the child prefers scary toys. This fact may indicate some internal conflicts, accumulated aggression, resentment, anger at some situation or person. Secondly, parents should observe the very nature of play with scary toys. Some children simply like the appearance of a scary character, but they play with him in a completely normal way, without endowing the toy with any negative qualities: putting him to bed, dressing him, arranging some adventures for him. This game does not pose any danger. You should be wary when the game is clearly aggressive in nature: the child constantly gets into fights with scary toys, acts out conflicts, and focuses on the negative qualities of the character.

Separately, I would like to say about children’s perception of modern scary toys, for example, superheroes. The child, due to his age, does not yet understand what kind of character such characters have and exactly how to play with them. If we are talking about characters such as Baba Yaga, Kashchei the Immortal, Barmaley, then everything is absolutely clear with them - frightening heroes are endowed with negative character traits, like a person: cunning, envy, grumpiness, greed, stubbornness, inability to make friends or make compromises . Modern heroes have special abilities that do not exist in the real world: the ability to fly, breathe under water, increase and decrease parts of their body, and so on. A child cannot see all this in the world around him, so it is difficult for him to understand how his belonging to the camp of good or evil is expressed. In addition, many modern characters are so mixed up with each other that even an adult is sometimes unable to understand who is who. Heroes who are strange and frightening in appearance may actually turn out to be kind in the story and vice versa. That is why parents must be involved in the gameplay and explain the characteristics of the character’s behavior, without focusing on his aggression. You can, for example, play stories about an initially evil character who becomes good during the game, or about an outwardly unsightly hero with whom no one wanted to be friends, but with the help of good deeds he discovered his true positive character and won the respect and calling of others. Only in this way can one influence the formation of correct moral principles in a child and teach him to understand the difference between good and evil.”

Victoria Kotlyarova

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