Parents, do you play with dolls with your children?

Many mothers loved playing with dolls when we were little and looked forward to the day when we would be able to do the same with our child. Unfortunately, some of us may have gone enthusiastically into that parent-child bonding activity only to learn that we hate it. Hate. It. read more

Making up your own stories then, with dolls or whatever, is a necessary and important thing for kids to do (whether those stories make sense or not!). Similarly, playing with your kids is what children remember. read more

So when a site like the Good Toy Guide, whose aim is to provide parents with independent, expert advice on toys, play and child development, is producing guides for parents at Christmas we include both genderised toys (with the caveat that all toys can be enjoyed by both genders) and gender neutral toys in our guides for good toys for girls / boys. read more

Play, by definition, is something that you want to do; so if you “play” with your child without wanting to you are not playing. David Lancy—author of The Anthropology of Childhood and perhaps the world’s leading expert on child-parent relationships throughout the world—says that the idea that parents should play with their children is a uniquely modern, Western idea (see his blog post here). read more