The Deadly Serious Business of Toys, Play, and Childhood Anxiety

Teaching Our Kids To Play and Pray

In last Sunday’s sermon, I mentioned that while I was in seminary, Lori and I were poor. We didn’t realize then how poor we were, but there were moments when I seriously wondered how God was going to provide for us. I was taking a full load of courses and working two jobs while Lori was caring for our two children under the age of three. We obviously survived or I wouldn’t be telling you about it, but there was no money for anything beyond the basics. So, for Christmas, I made toys for our kids out of scraps of wood. I cut out and sanded down some building blocks and Lori made a bag to put them in. I made a toy logging truck and after we took down the holiday decorations, I cut up the Christmas tree to make the logs for the trailer. They are in our living room and our grandchildren still play with them today.

Simple Toys, Greater Joys

Simple toys make the child work harder, think deeper, spark imagination, and are often what they prefer. How many times have you seen a kid get a new gift and end up playing with the box?

More toys don’t guarantee more joys. Several years ago, I was in Moldova building an orphanage with a team from our church. Our partners in Moldova worked alongside us each day and one of the women came every morning to prepare our mid-day meal. She brought her young son with her every day, gave him a few scraps from our building materials, and told him to stay in a designated area. He entertained himself for hours with those simple improvised toys. It took more work and imagination for him to play there in the dirt, but he seemed more content than a lot of over-toyed American children.

Children learn from play and simple toys afford significant learning. Ofelia Gonzales writes,

“When a baby bats at a mobile overhead, a toddler stacks blocks and knocks them down over and over, or a preschooler dresses up like a firefighter and battles an imaginary inferno, they aren’t just having fun. They are learning.

A child explores and makes sense of the world around him through play. In fact, research has shown that play impacts everything from physical abilities and vocabulary to problem-solving, creativity, teamwork and empathy.

Play time is so important that recently the AAP issued a report urging pediatricians to prescribe play for children in their care. “Play supports the formation of the safe, stable, and nurturing relationships with all caregivers that children need to thrive,” the report said.

Play supports many aspects of physical, intellectual and social-emotional growth. Kathy Hirsh-Pasek, who co-authored the AAP report, challenges adults to change the way they view play and playful learning. “Play helps us learn. Play helps us cope. Play helps us socialize,” Hirsh-Pasek said. ‘It’s not the opposite of work. We learn via play.’”

For thousands of years, toys for children were simple and few. But in our lifetimes, we’ve seen the lives of children cluttered with a multitude of complex toys. Because many of those toys require electricity, children are required to do less work, less lifting, less thinking, less imagining. The toy does much of the work for the child.

A Caution to Grandparents

Grandparents reading this may want to say “Amen!” at this point and begin a conversation with those infamous words, “When I was their age…,” but grandparents are often part of the problem. We love our grandkids, after all, and we may have more discretionary income than ever, so it’s a perfect storm. Not a few children are over-toyed partly because their grandparents are over-indulgent.

Anyway, I don’t mind spending money on my grandkids, but I’d rather spend it on shared experiences and memory-making (i.e., a day at the water park, boat rides, bike hikes, building sand castles on the beach, and of course, ice cream). That way we’re spending time interacting, getting some exercise, strengthening our bodies, and stretching our minds together.

And keep in mind that you were never “their age.” What I mean is that the world you grew up in was so different than the world your kids are raising your grandkids in. It’s easy to criticize parents for doing today what you probably would have done if you had faced the same set of circumstances back then.

Jonathan Haidt’s Hand Grenade: Play-Based Childhood vs. Phone-Based Childhood

You might think that the easier life of electronic gadgets, less strenuous play, and growing up with an enormous collection of toys would result in happier children. But kids aren’t happier today. They’re more anxious.

One of the best-selling books last year (2024) was Jonathan Haidt’s, The Anxious Generation: How the Great Rewiring of Childhood is Causing an Epidemic of Mental Illness. The book exploded in sales and helped launch a movement in parenting and education that pointedly questions the wisdom of giving our children access to so many screens. In fact, there is a noticeable global decline in overall happiness of boys and girls beginning with the advent of the iPhone in 2007.

It’s well-researched and makes a bold, compelling case that today’s parents are over-protective when it comes their kids actively playing in the real world outside with simple toys, where there’s risk of physical injury. However, they are under-protective when it comes to their kids passively playing in the virtual world on the screen. In fact, Haidt says that given the nature of human brain development, children shouldn’t be allowed to have a smartphone before high school, if then. He also argues for banning smartphones from schools altogether.

Alarmingly, many of today’s children are not experiencing a play-based childhood that provides physical risk, bumps and bruises, physical fitness, and social interaction with peers that toughened up former generations and prepared them for adulthood. Rather, they are experiencing a phone-based childhood that keeps them indoors, physically safe and soft, playing virtual games, feeding a cruel addiction, exposed to online predators, and unable to develop the social skills necessary for relational success.

What This Means for Discipleship

Veteran teachers resonate with Haidt’s findings. The smartphone has not made our kids smarter, sharpened their critical thinking skills, or lengthened their attention span. If you don’t believe me, spend some time talking with some veteran teachers.

Pastors notice it too.

Among other things, smartphones, with their countless apps, are an addictive distraction. No matter how hard a pastor works at being clear, compelling, and interesting, it’s always required mental discipline to listen to a sermon. Until recently, congregations mentally buckled down and followed the preacher’s train of thought through some of the less engaging parts of the sermon determined to come out on the other side with a greater understanding of holy text. But today, human brains are being rewired to surrender to an irresistible impulse during those crucial moments to read texts, check notifications, and start scrolling. Once they mentally wander away from that sermon, they often never come back, and they leave the church that day just as biblically illiterate as when they came.

What if we banned smartphones from church the way Haidt argues for banning them from schools? Just sayin’…

Haidt doesn’t leave the reader in despair but offers a lot of practical ways to address what’s happening now so we can reduce some of the anxiety in our highly anxious children.

I’ll have more to say about his findings in the coming weeks, but I’ll end with this. Every generation is required to obey Scripture, regardless of the unique challenges that each generation faces. Let’s ask God for the wisdom this generation needs to obey this kind command:

Rejoice in the Lord always; again I will say, rejoice. Let your reasonableness be known to everyone. The Lord is at hand; do not be anxious about anything, but in everything by prayer a supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God. And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.

–Philippians 4:4–7