Do we spoil our children?

I was watching my daughter today at a friend’s house; playing.  No great shock there really.  She is two and a half, with a penchant for toys of all descriptions.  But she was really playing.  For quite a long time and this was the thing that surprised me the most.

I have to explain that the friend we were visiting doesn’t have children and they had one box of old dolls and bits and bobs which they had dug out to amuse her.  Amuse her it did.  Without any intervention from me, she got everything out of the box and happily made up a little game with the dolls and their accessories.

This is something that she doesn’t normally do.  At home, we have a ridiculous amount of toys.  I think that I would probably rival most toy shops, yet when we are at home, she struggles to settle and play independently.  She prefers to follow me around and ‘help’ me or for me to sit and play with her.  This is lovely and I love spending time with her, but the reality of being a stay at home mum is that there are always a ton of other jobs to be done, that need to be fitted in around ‘playtime’.

So why does she not play independently at home.  Looking at this box of battered toys today, it occurred to me that maybe we have too many things.  Perhaps her little world here is so saturated with things to play with, that she actually can’t physically choose. Maybe being “spoilt” quite literally spoils children’s ability to play.

I never set out to spoil my children.  If anything, I really tried not to.  When I was young, I didn’t have a great deal of toys or things, but what I did have was a love of the outdoors.   Come rain or shine, I was outside; sometimes in the street playing with friends, other times, in the garden or garage playing on my own, doing ‘scientific’ experiments or exploring the world on my bike with my poor terrified rabbit in the front basket.

When you don’t have a great deal, you certainly make the most of what you have.  For me, that was nature and the world around me, for others it may be something more creative.  How many times have you found that the most fun your children have is with something really simple like a large cardboard box or other simple items?  Maybe we really do just over complicate things.

Then of course is the onset of computer games.  My eldest son liked computer games but when he was younger, they were fairly limited and now as a teenager, he can take them or leave them.  My six and eight year old sons have had a Wii for two years and a DS each and now they are discovering the joys of Apple technology.  Whilst sometimes the computer games are a good thing; both from a child occupying and an educational point of view, these games really don’t have a great effect on the boys and in spite of having so many games, they always want more.

Our house is so full of stuff, it drives me mad.  I am always tripping over things, walking into things, clearing things away and the cupboards, floor spaces and bedrooms are crammed full of stuff.  I am partially to blame, I am a hoarder and so a lot of things that my eldest son had has been kept, add that to a ton of stuff given to the other two boys and now the influx of pink things, well it is ridiculous really.

The other reason I know that children generally have too much is the fact that when you go to school fairs, jumble sales and charity shops, there are so many things that are like new.  In fact they probably are new.

I know that my children are extremely lucky, probably even privileged to have so many lovely things.  There are lots of children who are not so lucky.  Having said that, I feel that I need to make some changes.  Over the summer, I plan to have a massive clear out.  Anything that hasn’t been played with for some time is going.  During the summer holidays, the computer games may be with drawn.  I really want to strip things back and reunite my children with their imaginations again, which I may have been inadvertently stifling over recent years.  When it comes to Christmas and birthdays, I will think twice before buying those extra presents and ask other family members to do the same.  I think we will all benefit from it, especially the children.