The Salbation Army Story

Or, why you should play with only one toy at a time.

Sorry for the tech issues yesterday. I think most subscribers got two copies of the newsletter. Some of you even read and commented on it twice. Thanks!

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Photo by Swansway Motor Group on Unsplash

When I was little, my dad once got annoyed at my brother for not cleaning his room.

So, he announced that my brother’s toys were going to charity if he couldn’t put them away. Then he put them all in the trunk of his car for a few days as a lesson.

My dad eventually gave them back, or else this story might have been a lot darker. Instead, it’s a tale that gets told decades later with a laugh.

(I like to call it, “The Salbation Army Story,” for how my brother lamented and mispronounced: “Daddy said he’s giving all my toys to the Salbation Army!”)

But now a study suggests my dad might well have been on to something. In fact, it suggests that giving kids fewer toys might actually lead them to be more creative and successful.

Here's what the researchers found, what it leads them to suggest—and how it might affect parents' behavior.

"Better focus to explore and play more creatively"

Researchers at the University of Toledo divided 36 kids between the ages of 18 months and 30 months into two groups. Each child was observed as they played during two separate one-hour sessions.

The difference between the groups was that the kids in Group 1 were given 16 toys to play with, while Group 2 kids were only given 4 toys.

The conclusions? Researchers said the kids in Group 2, with only four toys:

1. Were much more creative, showing an ability to come up with far more games and activities to play with each individual toy, and 

2. Were much more focused and less easily distracted than the kids who were given 16 toys to play with.

As study author Carly Dauch put it:

"During toddlerhood, children develop, but may not have mastered, higher level control over attention. Their attention, and therefore, their play may be disrupted by factors in their environments that present distraction.

When provided with fewer toys in the environment, toddlers engage in longer periods of play with a single toy, allowing better focus to explore and play more creatively."

The study was published in the journal Infant Behavior and Development.

So, just buy them less?

The takeaways are obvious, right?

1. If you’re a parent, buy your kids fewer toys.

2. If you’re a grandparent, helpfully remind your grown children constantly that they risk spoiling their kids if they give them too much.

I’m kidding! Just kidding!

That said, one of the benefits of having become a dad later in life is that I'm more financially secure than I was at a younger age—or at least I tell myself I am.

And so my wife will attest, this manifests itself sometimes in an inclination to buy my daughter basically anything I think she might like. I temper that urge, but I don't think I'm alone in this.

We live in a culture that, as much as we try to fight back, often tells us that the more money you spend on someone, the more you show you care about them. Especially kids.

Interesting, isn’t it, that I thought to share this study a day after writing about the founder of Toys R Us.

Coincidence? There are no coincidences.

But where's the line? Should this concern lead you to actually deprive your kids of toys?

Actually, no—not exactly. (That sound you hear is the $27-billion-dollar U.S. toy industry breathing a massive sigh of relief.)

Instead, the researchers suggest that parents of young children rotate their kids' toys to improve focus.

Rotate, focus, and repeat

For example, if you have very young kids or grandkids, the researchers might suggest that if they’re focused on playing with, say Play-Doh, do what you can to put their Legos, blocks, and Fisher-Price Little People out of sight.

And while the researchers don't go too far out on a limb suggesting broader application, I think it probably makes sense to most of us that limiting distractions will often lead to greater concentration and creative output.

Extremely meta example: I started writing this article a few nights ago, when I had five other things going on at home.

But it wasn't until I packed up today and started writing in what has turned into my go-to isolated creativity space — in the driver’s seat of my car, parked in a lot outside a shopping center — that I was able to focus and really get it together.

By the way, there are no toys in the trunk.

Coincidence? There are no coincidences.

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7 other things …

• Iran launched hundreds of missiles against Israel Tuesday. This is going to be a developing story that will be outdated by morning, so this link should take you to an updated feed from Haaretz. (Haaretz)

• Dockworkers at ports from Maine to Texas began walking picket lines early Tuesday in a strike over wages and automation that could reignite inflation and cause shortages of goods if it goes on more than a few weeks. (AP)

• What Hurricane Helene’s 500-mile path of destruction looks like. (CNN)

• And, here's a live feed on the vice-presidential debate scheduled for last night. As with the situation in the Middle East, this will probably be very fluid by the time the newsletter goes out in the morning. (NY Times)

• No more ‘sell by’ stickers: California now has a new law standardizing food package labels. (Sacramento Bee)

• A growing number of Amazon employees are “rage applying” for other jobs in the wake of CEO Andy Jassy’s mandate to return to the office full-time at the start of the new year, according to a report. “At first, I didn’t quite believe it,” one employee said. “After all, who expects to get career-altering news from a news article instead of your employer.” (NY Post)

• A man who tried to breed enormous hybrid sheep using genetic material from endangered animals so he could sell them to trophy hunting ranches has been sentenced to six months in prison, the U.S. Department of Justice said. Arthur Schubarth, 81, illegally imported parts of the world's largest species of sheep from Kyrgyzstan, which he used to create cloned embryos in the United States. (AFP)

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Thanks for reading. Photo by Swansway Motor Group on Unsplash. I wrote about some of this before at Inc.com. See you in the comments!