When it comes to educational toys, parents these days face a cornucopia of choices that may possibly sometimes threaten to break the bank! For no business has ever gone under selling things to parents which are touted as being beneficial to their kids. And given the modern-day social phenomenon of the helicopter parent, ever-doting and ever-present, the makers of educational toys know that anything marketed as somehow providing kids with an advantage, often intellectual, is as sure a money-maker as anything ever tried.

Of course, not each and every single product is going to be a best-seller. However the chances of success improve when it comes to those purportedly designed to teach or help kids learn. But if you think about it, educational toys have always been around. After all, what are jigsaw puzzles?

And so we come upon one of the greatest controversies in child psychology. Just what makes a toy educational? Aren’t toys, by definition, educational to begin with? To be certain, the more complex a toy the greater the likelihood that it’s educational – that it teaches, or can be learned from.

But because play is an inherent part of human nature, and any object manipulated in a spirit of entertainment can be a toy, does it not follow that just about anything may be turned into a toy – and an educational one at that?

Sure. But there do exist toys which are obviously much more educational than others. Lego-type building blocks clearly involve motor and cognitive skills. But some thing like a programmable robot kit is clearly much more “educational” in comparison. Needless to say, it all would depend on the age of the child.

And so, in a strange way, it all comes down to the little one anyway – toys undoubtedly help, but never mistake education with learning itself, a fallacy all too easily seen in individuals who are primarily focused on factors outside the self.

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