By Gabrielle. Image is a still from the movie.
I’ve got a question for you. On our drive to the South of France, the topic of Toy Story came up and I asked my kids, “Do you ever remember playing with your toys the way Andy in Toy Story does?”
It occurred to me that though they have all done lots of pretend play over the years, I’ve never seen them do anything even close to how Andy played with his toys — setting up a scenario and sort of acting it out. And as a kid myself, I don’t remember playing that way either.
That made me me wonder. Do other kids play like Andy does? Or was it just good imagination on the part of the screenwriters? I don’t mind at all if it was just made up for the benefit of the script, but I’m curious to know if it’s common and I just haven’t seen it in person.
I know that different kids use different play-styles, and I know there are certain toys that my kids never really got into, even though they were around — like racetracks and matchbox cars. I also have a distinct memory from my niece Edie’s second birthday. She received a doll and a little doll feeding set with a bib, and bottle and binkie. She was over the moon! She immediately started parenting the heck out of that doll — cradling it, feeding it, diapering it. It was the cutest thing! Ben Blair and I laughed that none of our 4 daughters, or 2 sons, ever played pretend parenting. And there were (and still are) lots of dolls around. As far as dolls go, mostly my kids like to dress them up and design outfits for them. Hah!
How about you? How did you play as a child? If you have kids (or grandkids), do they play the same or differently than you did? Any Toy Story types out there? Anyone reading that has never seen Toy Story and have no idea what I’m talking about? I’d love to hear!
My older sister and I character-played like crazy, hours and hours. Even when I drew, I remember that I would mostly draw characters and then I would tell a story while I did it. Interestingly though, my little sister didn’t really play that way. She was (is) much more sporty than we were (are!), and seemed to enteratain herself more physically, biking and climbing and trampolining and jumping off cliffs- she is no less creative than we are though, actually. Interesting… I would have to say, my older sister and I continue to be story tellers, we love to paint a big picture, embellishing a little here and there, and my younger sister doesn’t really do that so much. My little guy does plenty of Andy-type play as well, although he spends equal time building and designing. Great questions! Interesting to see/hear how differently people play!
My 6-year-old does that when she draws too!
My three daughters play the way Andy in Toy Story does, almost all the time. They combine all their toys and create elaborate scenarios. I love listening in to hear the adventure for that day. They are 9, 7 and 5 and play with everything from Barbies to Legos and everything in between. I do think they enjoy this play because we don’t buy toy sets. We have bins of building toys, playmobil people, doll furniture, etc. so they create elaborate worlds with all of it!
Here’s an interesting article indicating that children might learn more from fantasy play than realistic play.
https://aeon.co/ideas/why-kids-can-learn-more-from-tales-of-fantasy-than-realism
I did play kind of like Andy did, while setting up a scenario and acting it out with the toys as my actors. But that wasn’t until I was eight or nine or ten. I used Barbies and a Barbie-sized playhouse. I would make elaborate dramas between the girls and with Ken– he was her husband, but then she yelled at him, so he moved out and then she died, so he moved back in and married his co-worker… I acted out soap operas before I knew what they were.
Maybe that’s why I was never interested in soap operas– I had played all the scenarios out with my dolls already. And in very childlike terms— no sex because I didn’t know what that was yet, but I knew that if you slept in the same bed with someone you weren’t supposed to, that was reason to get mad and break up.
Do my own kids play like that? No. We have a dollhouse that is used for toy storage, we have a wooden airplane set with passengers that is unused, we have dolls galore, both that will fit in the dollhouse and that will not.
We’re having trouble with this idea, so I’m going to peruse the comments above this when I’m done writing. We may have too many toys, even when we rotate them. Maybe we don’t rotate them often enough.
Y’all realise the scenarios Andy acts out all come from other sources (within the movie), or are influenced by them? He doesn’t come up with them on his own.
And yes, my 2.5yr son engages in play like this. Using his toys, he acts out his favourite books (like The Gruffalo, The Storm Whale, The Magic Hat), as well as his own scenarios that are informed by events in his life. It is very important for development and I would be very concerned if he didn’t engage in imaginative play. But I also encourage it by restricting screen time, reading lots of stories, keeping the number of toys he owns low, and trying to have mainly open ended toys.
My brother and I thought of our stuffed animals as friends. https://i.imgur.com/OWgVSGm.jpg This is Orangestripes, my cowardly, evil, lazy British tiger. He made me and my brother his slaves and his favorite thing to say was “Carry me, slaves”
My daughter has always played like that. She loves all of those tiny figures and always has a big story going and speaks for all the toys. When she draws she does the same thing as though the figures she’s drawing are alive. Bored in a restaurant she even turned the crayons into characters. She’s an only child. Every kid is different and I wonder if playing style, just like learning style, is part of how we’re hard wired. If you ask me (although I have zero qualifications to say anything on the subject) I think too much attention is given to things like this and kids don’t all have to be the same.
I can’t speak for my child since they are not born yet. But me, I played just like Andy did. I have always been very creative and came up with the most detailed stories and ideas. I would even have entire scenes with only imaginary friends.
However, unlike Andy, I would not play with toys that didn’t go together. For example, I would play with my American Girl dolls and my Barbie dolls, but they could not be played together because they are two separate things.
I still come up with very elaborate stories and ideas. I’ve always been very creative. While I was making up all these stories and worlds, my little sister just couldn’t understand or get into it.
We were both in advanced classes in school. But we thought very differently, and that didn’t make me or her any smarter. Just different.
My brother and I gave our toys real personalities, too! https://i.imgur.com/OWgVSGm.jpg This is Orangestripes, a cowardly, evil, lazy British tiger. He made me and my brother his slaves and his catchphrase was “Carry me, slaves”
I think its the playing by himself that you reference and yes, my youngest does go into his own world and have long games with his action characters (anything from TMNT to monster trucks). Its beautiful to listen to even if the words are mostly in his head/ garbled and noise imitating.
Thank you for asking this question. I found myself wondering the same thing as, the story-telling that Andy does with his toys is not anything that my brother, childhood friends or my nephews and nieces ever did. I had a look the child developmental literature, which mainly cites Piaget. Piaget describes “Pretend Play” as occurring between the ages of 2 and 7 mainly, but lumps together acting out fantasy with doing role-playing with inanimate objects. The answers here have been very helpful, I couldn’t see much research easily available on the topic, but a straw poll here is very informative.
Children with autistic traits are supposed to be more limited in “Pretend Play” or “Imaginative Play” so there must be some research out there as to what proportion of children play like this and how long they spend doing it for comparisons.
Terry Pratchett in “Good Omens” describes a childhood closer to mine. I remember roaming the neighbourhood with friends playing building forts in the local farmer’s haystack, scavenging on the local municipal refuse site, ‘flying’ around with my anorak held up as wings, pretending to by batman, hunting lions and tigers in the local woods with home made bows and arrows, stealing our mother’s lipstick to put on ‘war paint’ etc. So we did participate in fantasy, but not in the intricate fantasy world like Andy.
I was wondering if it were perhaps the difference between generations, as children are less encouraged to go out now or if it had something to do with a rural vs urban upbringing, but from this poll it sounds like the main factor id the individual child’s style of play.