Image Credit: Billy Alexander
This article was originally published on 26th November 2012. It was updated on 30th November 2017
A new report from Ribena has confirmed what parents have know for decades; give a kid a present and chances are they will have just as much fun playing with the cardboard box as they do with the toy that it held. Ribena surveyed over 2000 UK parents during September 2012 and almost twice as many parents said that their children prefered playing with boxes than those that said they prefered gadgets. Indeed 1 in 7 parents actually reported that their children played longer with the box than the actual toy that they had recieved.
Pete Kaser, a school teacher from Columbus, Ohio has taken this concept even further and as an experiment removed all the toys from his classroom and replaced them with cardboard boxes, tubes, foam and other raw materials.
He reported no complaints from the children and even noticed behavioral changes in some of them. Quieter children and those who had trouble separating from their parents in the morning began to show leadership and negotiation skills.
In this news report from NBC you can watch his class at play and see just how many creative ideas the kids came up with.
Here is a TEDx talk that Peter Kaser gave explaining more about what happened when he took away the toys from his classroom and replaced them with cardboard boxes.
So, if like a third of parents surveyed, you feel 'pressured' into buying expensive gifts and gadgets for your children, just remember that the old cliché about kids prefering the box to the toy still holds true, even in the age of iPads, games consoles and interactive TV.
About eParenting: eParenting was started by Jacqui O'Brien in 2004. At the time her kids were 1 and 4 and kept her nice and busy. Now they are teenagers and still keeping her pretty busy!