HEY, SANTA, PACK LIGHT!

Fewer toys, better playtime: study

Santa should consider hauling a smaller payload this year — because fewer toys gives kids a better quality of playtime, a new study claims.

Toddlers with fewer things to play with are more creative and focused than kids up to their ears in choices, according to the study published in an upcoming edition of the journal Infant Behavior and Development.

University of Toledo researchers gave kids between the ages of 1 and 3 either four toys or 16 toys and observed their “quality of play” in 15minute increments.

“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 researchers said.

“An abundance of toys presents reduced quality of toddlers’ play,” the study concludes, while just a few “promotes development and healthy play.”

Simply stowing more toys in storage also helps rein in the attention of scatterbrained toddlers, the researchers found.

“One recommendation may be to opt for having fewer toys available in a play environment for any one play session,” the study notes.

“When there is an abundance of toys, small collections can be rotated into play while the majority is stored away, providing opportunities for novelty without creating the distraction posed by having too many toys available.”

But ultimately, less is more when it comes to the “creativity, imagination, and skill development” of toddlers, the study notes.

It isn’t the first time a smaller pile under the Christmas tree suggested a net gain for kids.

In 1999, public-health workers in Munich, Germany, conducted an experiment in which they removed all toys and books from a nursery for three months and studied the impact on kids.

The Der Spielzeugfreie Kindergarten (the nursery without toys) project found that when kids were left with just tables, chairs and blankets, they happily invented their own games, without being “suffocated” by their toys.