Toy-free kindergarden

Since September last year I have been volunteering in a German kindergarten in Leipzig, and a few days ago my mentor told me about a new project that is going to be carried out, which caught my attention as I had never heard of anything like it before.

From March until May, the kindergarden I am in will remove all the toys and materials (paper, scissors, paints...) with which the children have been able to entertain themselves until now. This initiative is carried out every two years, so that the children can develop new forms of play for themselves and find new forms of entertainment.

This idea is based on a study carried out in 1980 in the district of Weilheim-Schongau (Bavaria) about drug addiction in adults. It was found that in many cases the origin of the addiction could be traced back to the individual's childhood. Thus, one of the aims of toy withdrawal is to improve social skills in order to reduce the risk of addictive behaviour in the future.

It is intended to help children develop the skills necessary to cope with negative feelings as adults. By confronting them with frustration and boredom, they may learn to manage the emotions that arise from that situation and find new solutions to the problems they are facing. Without toys, children will have to develop their own ideas, and they are also more likely to interact with kids with whom they may not have previously had a relationship. The removal of toys helps the development of psychosocial skills, creativity, empathy and problem solving. This in turn contributes to the development of children's self-esteem and self-image.

It can happen that by temporarily removing toys and distractions children are forced to deal with their own feelings. If a child is troubled for some reason or there is a constant worry that plagues them, they may seek refuge in the distraction offered by a particular toy or activity as an escape from dealing with the issue.

Another important point is that educators cannot propose or direct the games; it must be the children themselves who are capable of inventing and organising their own way to pass the time.

Nevertheless, this method has been widely criticised by psychologists and specialists, who argue that this initiative lacks scientific evidence and that there is no compelling reason to link it to the prevention of drug addiction. Furthermore, they argue that this strategy could be harmful in the long term by subjecting children to unnecessarily high levels of stress.

As a result, several independent observational studies were conducted to test whether this technique did indeed have harmful effects on children in the long term. The results showed that those children who had enjoyed toy-free periods showed an increase in social interaction, creativity, empathy and communication skills.

The debate is still open and for the moment this idea is still unknown in education in many countries. For my part, I find it very interesting to be able to see this from the inside and to see how the following months in kindergarten develop, as well as how children's behaviour changes when they suddenly no longer have the materials that were their day-to-day leisure.