BOXES
Nothing can entertain a small yougster - boy or girl - as does a simple cardboard box or two.
It need not be a fancy one. Just about any clean, cardboard or corrugated box will do quite well.
Gift buying at Christmas time is fine, or course, and on special days, such as a birthday, a special toy can be a fine thing for any child, but don't throw away the box it came in.
With conventional toys a child sees and holds the object it is supposed to be - an animal, a building, a fine car or truck, fish or whatever it is intended to resemble, but when he has just a carton or two before him he uses his imagination and makes it be whatever he wants it to become at any specific time. It is difficult for the grown up mind to realize how varied the child's creative sensibilites can be and often are.
Take care, of course, that all metal or plastic staples, wires or attachments have been removed before you consign them into the care and use of the young engineer potential who will convert the potential engineer you supply into whatever he feels they might become. There are no limits, either.
The box can become a house for his stuffed animals, it can be a space ship on which he rides off into a world of whirling stars, it can be a wagon bumping along a dusty, rutted road or a bobsled rushing down a snow-covered slope. Such a collection of boxes gives exercise to a childs creative urges and it is also amazing to see him or her "explain" what it is to other children of the same age. By means of some miracle means of communcation, it becomes quickly obvious that the second child soon knows, for a fact, that what they have is whatever the first child seems to think it is.. They both ride the sled, bike, car, wagon, cart or whatever the box has become in their world. And another unusual thing can take place when the second or a third child decides the box or boxes are really something entirely different.
A child can find security and very real emotional help with such simple toys. They are far more flexible in his view and better fit his or her emotional need. If they want protecion they hide inside behind or in the box. If he or she wants to feel the presence of love, admiration, ,joy, happeness ...even a grumpy mood now and then -the child has a ready co-conspiritor handy. in that plan. The box can be castle or cabana; palace or pauper's hut on demand. Fancier toys are limited by what they are made to be. Boxes....beautiful boxes ... can be anything they want them to be.
In England, and in some parts of the empire lands such as of Canada and Australia, chidlren are made aware of Boxing Day which occurs, I think, the day after Christmas Day, or some observe it on the first week-day after the 25th. At that time, as they grown older and more mature, children are encouraged to gather up posessions and place them in boxes which are, then, distributed to the dwelling places of the poor and needy. It has varied over the centuries,.of course, and hence there are various traditions as to what Boxing Day should entail.. They did decorate boxes and fill them with goods which were then given to the poor.
I wonder if they lf they left the boxes in the homes they visited. Poor children would know empty boxes to be a gift with which they had experence.
Don't wait until the trandiitonal boxing day. Find some cardboard boxes - often they can be yours without charge at local stores - and let your child play with them on the floor or on the front lawn.
Sit down nearby and watch.You can witness their eager ingenuiy at work as they play.
A.L.M. February 3, 2003 [c 576wds]
