Toy of the Year 2023 is a cardboard box

I order food online and almost everything we need usually arrives in a cardboard box. My kids love these boxes. Someone usually asks when they empty the box if they can take it out to play. As we enter the last month of the year, I dare to announce that the Ruuhkattoman Toy of the Year 2023 is a cardboard box! The cardboard box that will be arriving in households is an ecological by-product, a cornucopia of endless creativity and is suitable for playful people of all ages!  

I admit that in the past, when we still had too much stuff, I was very tempted to say no to the box cutters. The vision of an even messier living room, blocked passageways and a Lego cardboard screen on the floor immediately came to mind. Who would clean that up too? Handing over the box would have meant yet another addition to my never-ending to-do list.

Now our home is at the point where we've cleared out so much stuff and unnecessary furniture that there's free play space in every room. I can happily let a box play, knowing it will live in a corner somewhere for a couple of weeks - whatever. Now it will fit in there.

Why is the Toy of the Year 2023 a cardboard box?

How can a cardboard box be a toy, let alone a Toy of the Year? So what do you do with the box? Children have made planes, racing cars, trains, houses and dolls' houses out of them. The possibilities are endless and the mind boggles at the wonderful blanks in the box. Forgetting for a moment all that our society has told us about toys, the virtues of a toy are variety, attraction and availability.

Children also enjoy these games for hours, even in harmony. We have already declared the cardboard box Toy of the Year in 2019, 2020, 2021 and 2022! This year was no exception.

The cardboard box still attracts every child. One turns it into a toy puppy house and the other sits in the driver's seat. The little boy just wondered out loud when he couldn't fit into any box anymore. But the older one consoled him that this box makes a really good robot head that fits everyone's heads.

Open-ended toys are important for the development of creative problem-solving skills

What is this cardboard box mess all about? It is important for a child's development to be able to play open-ended games where the outcome is not predetermined. This is the kind of play stimulated by Lego blocks, for example, with their endless possibilities for assembly.

Tinkering with a cardboard box is the same endless stream of imagination - using your imagination to create something new and practise all sorts of things. No one predetermines how the game will turn out or what the cardboard box will eventually become. This is creative play, where the child gets to create rather than the plaything dictating the direction of the play.

I previously wrote an article on open end toys, you can find it here here.

Play is a fundamental right of the child

At the end of November, we celebrated Children's Rights Day. In fact, play is so important that UN Convention on the Rights of the Child lists the "right to play" as a specific point (31): play is an important pillar of a child's well-being.

There are many ways to play - and you can play well without toys. As Christmas approaches, I always wonder how Christmas has become such a toy-filled celebration that everything else gets lost under the presents. Our children don't need all those toys, they need opportunities to play. So let's listen with a sensitive ear when a child suggests play or asks for a chance to play. Let play happen, even if it means a momentary mess, and remember that toys are not (necessarily) needed for play. But play space and blanks are!

So be bold and cut out overly detailed toys and create space and opportunities for play. If you have a big pile of toys but a reluctant and cranky play-age, it could be a sign of too many toys and too little play space or opportunity to create play (e.g. by crafting). You can read about the impact of the number of toys on play here.

I recently wrote some tips for pruning toys and especially around the holidays, a pruning round is in order as gifts come into almost every home. You can read about the toy sorting process here. If you need help with pruning toys, contact the trade union in your area. You can find trained trade organisers at the Finnish Trade Organisers' Association. from.

Have a playful wait for Christmas!