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Ten Stress Free Shopping
Tips
• Guidelines for parents, grandparents, or anyone
with children on their shopping lists.
Play fosters intellectual, social and physical development.
Adults are encouraged to view toys as learning tools with
different types of toys as builders of various life skills
including creativity, self-esteem and cooperation. Another
bonus: a toy that is fun as well as educational will engage
children for more than one holiday season. The following
are general guidelines to keep in mind when choosing toys
for the child, or children, on your holiday list:
1. Allow children to identify their own strengths with
self-discovery toys. Toys kids play with by themselves,
such as dolls, science activity kits and magic sets, help
teach them important lessons about responsibility, values
and respect for others.
2. Increase confidence and build pride while children
are young with self-esteem toys like art projects, model-building
and construction toys.
3. Support open-ended play that allows free expression
and lets kids use their imaginations. Bring out the creativity
in kids with theater/puppet shows, cooking sets and pretend
play projects such as tea parties.
4. Help children learn how to think independently with
toys that promote concentration, competition and deductive
reasoning. Thinking and logic toys include detective puzzles,
ant farms, construction sets and memory games.
5. Build social skills and family togetherness with family
interaction toys. Recommended games include dress up,
board games, sports activities and battery-controlled
car and boat races.
6. Encourage cooperation with friends and peers with relationship
toys. Team communication skills are improved with sports,
contests of skills, and toys such as medical and chemistry
kits.
7. Let kids run, crawl, climb, throw and kick with toys
like climbing structures and ride-on toys that use large
muscle groups. Gross motor activities help kids develop
balance and exercise gross motor skills.
8. Improve hand-eye coordination with fine motor activities
that require hand movements such as grasping and pinching.
Smart choices include stacking games, puzzles, writing
and coloring books/activities.
9. Strengthen language skills and stimulate listening,
speaking and imitation sounds with speech and hearing
toys. Musical toys, play telephones, phonics-based sets
and voice-command games are suggested.
10. Teach kids, especially infants and toddlers, about
their environment through textures, tastes, smells and
sight with sensory activities. Clay, activity quilts,
blocks and shape games are all good choices.
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