TOYS THAT ENHANCE CREATIVE INTELLIGENCE

By Daria Brezinski, Ph.D. (c)

In a new book which will be coming out in the spring, Ralph Nader with co-author Linda Coco discuss their10 years of research on how three entrepreneurial groups sell industry and corporate management on the weaknesses in our culture- a child’s spiritual development . This investigation was prompted by an article in Forbes Magazine in 1987 which discussed the “new” market of four to seven year old children. The marketing strategy was to create a new generation of lifetime consumers through developing products that target the deficiencies in our culture with the decline of organized religion. This spiritual deficiency is exemplified in the need of people to find their “souls” and/or meaning in life. The popularity of Ninja Turtles, the X Files, Star Trek and Men in Black are all perfect examples.

As the holiday season approaches, you may be looking to purchase toys for the children in your life. Much of what the media does to sell product is to distort instinctual values and make them appear palatable. If you want the children in your life to have a healthy, wholesome value system, be careful of the toys you purchase as the hidden motivations lie below the surface of marketing schemes. Here are some helpful hints.

Play is the means by which a child becomes master of the world. Play enables a child to incorporate all the values, habits, attitudes and beliefs of the environment and culture. Play is the source of richness of a child to play-out real world circumstances. It is THE greatest source of learning. Habits developed in play become incorporated in adult daily life. The objects of play are just as important as the colors, materials, textures, size, shape and complexity of the object. The more extreme from “nature” the toy, the less value it has in play.

In purchasing toys, a good rule of thumb is “less is more”. A young child, by that is meant until the age of 12 years, needs to develop creative imagination. These are the real purpose of toys. Have you noticed that after all of the boxes have been opened on Christmas morning that the greatest joy for children is playing in the empty boxes? This is because large empty boxes enable the child free exploration of the “child” world. Large empty boxes are the greatest source of joy for a child. In a box, one can be exploring a cave, flying a plane, driving a car or just finding a sense of peace and silence from our hectic world. Empty boxes are very, very important.

Keeping in mind that “less” is better, let’s look at dolls. The best types of dolls are those that allow the creative imagination to take over. Dolls made of cloth, with thread for eyes, nose and mouth allow a child more freedom. Interchangeable clothing made of soft cotton has a variety of benefits. This type of clothing allows a child to learn to button, snap, tie and remove clothing that will later be translated into their own clothing. The textures of cloth enable the child to develop their sense of “feeling” textures. Dolls of animal nature are preferable to human in the early years because children until the age of eight relate to animals. Paper dolls for older children are excellent as well. Allowing for creativity of making their own accessories and clothing, paper dolls can open a world of joy to play. Dolls, like Barbie, Ken, GI Joe, and such are cold hard plastic with plastic accessories, inappropriate body dimensions, and generally represent a distorted value system subliminally.

Your child’s room should be a source of peace and comfort. If the room is filled with bright and/or psychedelic colors, there is little peace for the child’s mind. Rudolph Steiner was one of the first to recognize that pastels are the colors that enable a child to get in touch with the inner self. Harsh colors of todays world do not allow the eye to develop fully. This lack of development is also accentuated with the use of florescent lighting. Toys and games that have these harsh lights over stimulate the retina and do not send proper signals to the brain. Purchasing toys that are full of harsh, bright, overstimulating colors are detrimental to the creative mind.

Babies do see all of the colors of the spectrum according to the most recent studies. They also recognize the faces of their parents and other loved ones within the first weeks of life. The greatest mobile you can have in a child’s crib is one that displays the faces of loved ones. Tape photographs to a mobile and watch your child smile. Record the voices of loved ones to play for the child along with soft music.

If you are looking to promote language development, do not purchase toys that speak to the child through mechanical means. Children get a distorted sense of language through these toys and often form inappropriate and false impressions that are carried through to adult life. If you want to stimulate language development, talk to you child, record your own voice, read to your child, speak to them at meals. You will not only build language skills but auditory discrimination as well. Bonding is another added benefit to talking with a child, one which is highly underrated. Contrary to media hype, the less you use mechanical means, the better your child will be equipped for “real” life circumstances.

The greatest form of developing creative intelligence is through reading to your child. This promotes understanding the language as well as exposure because a loved one is statistically more influential on a child than anyone else. Reading also allows the child to form pictures in their minds- a highly misunderstood art for intuition and creativity. Reading to a child also builds attention span and develops vocabulary. A young child can listen to stories many levels above his or her reading level and comprehend the essence of the story. This also develops essential skills for reading in later life like story comprehension, decoding skills and getting the main idea.

Reading prior to bedtime will also enhance the dream state for a child. Be careful of the kinds of books you purchase to read for your child. ALL children’s books are not appropriate or good. Some may have values and words that are not those which reflect your families belief system.  READ them before you purchase them. Generally, the Caldicott and Newbury award winning books are the best. You can find these award winning titles anywhere.

Next to reading, block building is high on the list for enhancing creative intelligence. Wooden blocks, free of splints, in a variety of shapes and sizes, and Lincoln Logs allow for the development of pre-math skills. Children learn about stacking, size, shape, classifying, categorizing, and dimensional space through the use of wooden blocks. Legos and constructs are good for older children after the age of about 10 because the plastic and configuration does not allow for a child’s creativity and exploration as well as wood. Many books have been published on the subject which relate to specific learning skills through tangrams or cuisenaire rods. Studies have shown that highly mathematical children can learn to do difficult math problems after mastery of these two functions alone.

The arts are very, very important for a child’s exploration of the world. The arts enable children to get in touch with their passion. Children need to be encouraged to draw at very early ages with soft pastels paints, light graphite pencils and pastel pencils. The 500 colors in a box of crayons are very unnecessary. A child can learn to mix and blend colors themselves to create various shades. Purchasing art books and paper is very important for children to get in touch with their souls. Coloring books, dot-to-dot, coloring in lines are  detrimental to creativity and getting in touch with a child’s inner self. Encourage the free drawing of lines, exploring the entire sheet of paper, and doodling are very important skills that are dismissed in our culture today. Children need the freedom to explore space both on the paper and off in order to gain a sense of self.

In exploring the “air” space, children should be encouraged to move to music. Dancing or moving to music that is soft, graceful and gentle brings out that aspect of a child’s nature. Pop music is OK but it is geared to first and second chakra energy and tends to get stuck there. For children to raise Kundalini energy, it must freely move through space like the clouds or water as it rushes through the stream. Classical and some new age music is more beneficial. Passionate music devoid of lyrics are best for the growing child. You can find this in popular music today- for example in the sound track from Braveheart.

In order to gain a sense of self-esteem, children need to explore themselves. This is well implemented by using mirrors and dress-up. Although this activity is considered a young child’s exploration, it is one that suits well into teen years. Children love Halloween and it has been glamorized to meet the needs of a deficiency in our culture- pretend. In the art of pretending, a child merges with the values and habits of culture. Be careful what a child pretends. You can KNOW a child by observing his/her play. If they are watching too much TV, it will be reflected in their play. If they are learning inappropriate things at school, it will be reflected in pretend play.

The more fresh air a child gets, the more in touch with nature they will be the more they will be in touch with themselves. Let them explore the dirt, sand, leaves, grass. Rather than purchasing metal climbing apparatus, allow them to climb trees. CHILDREN LEARN THEIR OWN INNER LIMITS THROUGH TREE CLIMBING. They instinctively know when they are too high, when they can fall and where they should go IF LEFT ALONE TO DISCOVER THIS THEMSELVES. PARENTS WHO ARE AFRAID TEACH THEIR CHILDREN FEAR. Tree climbing is the single most essential element for learning balance, dimension, and depth perception. It is primary for children to learn about the seasons of their lives. Trees are crucial to the healthy growth of a child in many ways. Although children are not verbally astute, they observe trees through many perspectives and their values of life are often reflected by the amount of time they have spent in touch with the natural world. They also discover the animal and insect world from the exploration of trees.

Along with nature, toys that swing, rock and move in such manner are very important for building equilibrium in the brain of a child. It is wonderful to see rocking horses and children’s rockers come back in vogue. Wooden swings are excellent. Even a rope tied to the branch of a swing is a learning tool. These toys create balance in the inner child and can often be a source of centeredness and peace. Children can be seen rocking or swinging for hours never desiring to stop.

Learn to create a child’s world in your home. Go to your kitchen and put the pots and pans at the child’s level. Allow them to pretend to cook, clean, and follow along after you in the kitchen. This is how they learn adult roles in life. Allow them to spread their things all over the kitchen while you are cooking. Children LOVE to clean and pretend to be adults. It takes time to teach a child these skills and in our hurry up world, we find little time to teach them and allow them to help. HOWEVER, when they get to be adults, because of the time you spent with them teaching them self-help skills as a child, they will be functional workers in our society as a result. Keep the tools as close to a child’s level as possible. Buy a child’s size broom, dust pan and shovel as well as keeping a child sized table and chair in the kitchen. About 20 years ago at the Smithsonian, an exhibit was created to enable teachers to feel what it was like to be a child in an adult world. This exhibit had tables and chairs etc. equivalent to the size of a child vs. adult world. For teachers who participated and had to manuver into chairs twice their size, the perception of a child’s view of the world was altered forever!

The MEDIA distorts sacred values in order to sell its wares. Take for example, the Ninja Turtles. The idea of using the martial arts, which is a sacred form of art and focusing, has been glamorized as a means of self-defense. The martial arts were developed as tools for mastering ones self- not as a means of destroying opponents. It is an art of allowing the opponent to defeat himself with his own energy. It is an art which teaches self-control, compassion, centerdness and non-violence. However, the media has distorted these sacred values to its own end- selling product.

This is only one example of toy marketing that distorts the spiritual nature of the child. There are thousands. Do not allow media advertising, which is mass targeted to appeal to your child so that your child appeals to you, to encroach on your responsibilities as the guardian of your child. CHILDREN DO NOT KNOW WHAT IS IN THEIR BEST INTEREST. Television is a powerful tool that creates the mind to be in an alpha state so that subliminal messages become part of the belief system of the masses with ease. Don’t be subject to its mesmerizing effects. Electronic toys, games, television, Nintendo, virtual reality, and computers are detrimental to a child until AGE 12! Prior to the age of 12, a child’s conscience is not formed. What these electronic devices do are to overrides the limbic system of the brain which overrides the conscience part of the brain so that children have a distorted sense of reality. This is why we have children who do not value life, who lack conscience and moral values. These devices are also highly overstimulating to a child’s mind and sense of being. It keeps them in need of constant gratification by being on the “edge”. This mentality cannot be satisfied and creates children who are constantly looking for pleasure that will keep them feeling that edge.

An essential key to creative intelligence is something totally lacking in a child’s world of today- SILENCE. Children need to be allowed to go to quiet places and just “BE”. They need to be allowed to have their minds drift off when in conversation with you. When they do this, they are looking blank or “far off” but what they are really doing is getting in touch with their creative intelligence. Allow time for a child’s quiet space, this does not include nap time or rest. There should be a place in your home to allow a child space to be in silence. As a culture, meditation has become popular because we have all lost the art of getting in touch with our higher selves through silence. Allow it in your child.

You are the custodian of your child’s sense of being in this world. Their knowledge of themselves and their world is a responsibility you must accept as a parent. The purchase of toys is one of those responsibilities you must not take lightly. It is your child’s future that depends on the judgements you make now. Create a safe, peaceful, creatively stimulating environment and you will find that you have nurtured a healthy child for the future.