Choosing Toys For Children

Children love toys. It's obvious, the colorful and funny look of toys will attract their little eyes. Toys bring joy and fun to children. They can explore and learn the different shapes of toys. Choosing the right toys for children are not easy. Specially if the child has a special need like autistic or has special disability. The demand of toys will increase significantly during holiday and ceremonial seasons like Christmas, Easter, New Year and Birthday celebration. Parent will love standing on a long queue to get their children's favorite toys, remember "Jingle All The Way" ?

There are many types of toys. Commonly, toys are categorised in :

Dolls, Animals, and Miniatures
Doll is a prototype of a human body. Could be like a baby, or little child, or adult woman like Barbie. Children love dolls specially little girls who naturally love showing their motherhood. Boys love dolls too, but usually in an animal shape. Modern dolls made from plastic or cloth. People can make dolls from any kind of material like wood, bone, stone, porcelain, clay, weed (in my country there is a person who made a doll from weed and the doll can grow if it is watered). Animal toys are great too, like Teddy Bear. I love Teddy and almost every child will smile if someone bring a Teddy for him/her. Miniatures toys are toys which represent real figures in tiny size. Soldiers, animals, houses, trains are children  favorite miniatures toys and have been widespread all around the world.

Construction sets
Construction set toy is a collection of separate pieces that can be joined together to create figure. The model usually vehicles like spaceships, cars, trucks, forklift, and robots or houses. The most popular construction set is a set of wooden blocks. Children love wooden blocks because they can play with their imagination freely.

Vehicle
Vehicle toys are most popular in boys like cars, motorcycle, bikes, trucks, trains, ships, aeroplanes, boats, yachts, and many more like Asian vehicle ricksaw, tuk-tuk, becak, and bajai. The toys are made from wood, plastic, and other materials. They can move forward, in the water, and even fly.

Puzzles
A puzzle is like an enigma and need time to solve it. Like jigsaw puzzle, and Rubik's Cube that popularized in the 1980's.
There are many different types of puzzles, for example a maze is a type of tour puzzle. Other categories include; construction puzzles, stick puzzles, tiling puzzles, transport puzzles, disentanglement puzzles, sliding puzzles, logic puzzles, picture puzzles, lock puzzles and mechanical puzzles.

Physical activity
Those toys are simple and could be played together like balls, jumping rope, tops, and hops. The children can run, move, and play together. Those toys are made from leather, plastic, and simple material like dried leaves (dried lontar leaves). Have you ever seen a ball from dried lontar leaves ?

Collectibles
Collectibles toys are popular among collectors (children and grown ups) like Barbie, Brats, Star Wars, etc. Most collectibles toys are come from movie, specially box office and popular movie. Beside movie, football players, professional athletes are common as collectibles toys.

Toys for promotional merchandise
These toys could be anything and they are used to promote a product. Like toys in Happy Meals collection. Almost the same with collectibles toys, people tend to buy toys for promotional products to be collected. Promotional toys can be dolls, or action figures based on the new or box office movie like Batman, Baseball player or club, and popular game like Nintendo.

Educational Toys
Educational toys help the development of children's brain. It vary from different age range. From babies to todler and primary school children. Type of educational toys like colors, shapes, numbers, alphabets, and many more.

Homemade Toys

Homemade toys are cheap. My granny used to make some homemade toys for me using disposal materials like cloth, paper, thread, etc. For example, make a handmade doll from paper like washi dolls, do not have to use the real washi paper from Japan, just use origami paper or wrapping paper, make toys from towel cloth, etc.

1.  Do not have to be expensive toys.
2.  Consider of the safety and benefits. Be carefull with the choking hazards if you have a child under 3 years old
3.  Check the material, if the smell is too strong do not choose it. Because the paint could be danger for your children respiratory. Check the label that state "nontoxic"
4.  Consider if the toys are made from sturdy material that will hold up with lots of playing. You know, children are used to throw, and smack their toys :)
5.  Consider if the toys are easy to wash and keep clean.
6.  Consider if the toys are made lots of noises. It could hurt children hearing.
7.  Consider if the toys are work well.
8.  Choose the right age range toys for children and consider if the other child with different age be able to use the toys too.
9.  Consider if the children could play with the toy or does it play for them.
10.   We should choose toy that allow the children to be more creative and not just watch the toy  play for them. Like video game, or learning alphabets and numbersin the computer, etc

1.  We have to pay attention what kind of toys that the child likes. Sometime Autistic child like to play with parts of toys instead of the whole toys. Still, safety is the main condition to consider,
2.  Choose toys that could stimulate their fine and gross motoric sensor.
3.  Consider the child's treatment and consult with the child's therapist.
4.  Choose toys made for sensory stimulation, social skills, and development. Could be their everyday toys and your household things.
5.  Choose toy that can be used for their need.