Vera abramenkova what our children play. Beware of toys!!! Vera Abramenkova – Doctor of Psychology, Chief Researcher at the Institute for the Development of Preschool Education of the Russian Academy. Why do we need a game and a toy

Author: Abramenkova Vera
Editor: Olga Golosova
Publisher: Lepta, 2010
Series: Help for parents
Genre: Books for parents

Annotation for the book "What our children play. A toy and an anti-toy"

And it depends on us adults that ...
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A toy is a great invention of mankind, it not only accumulates the experience of many generations of people, but also embodies the basic life values of a particular people, of a particular era, transmitted to other generations.
A toy is a tool for cognizing the entire wealth of human culture for a child, it is also an indicator of the trends in the development of culture itself - for an adult. Therefore, it is very important for us, parents, teachers, people of various professions, to know these trends, their valuable spiritual meaning, which determines our movement with children in the direction of Goodness, Beauty and Truth or in the opposite direction.
The archetypes of carnal existence, violence and debauchery as the main thing, as the victorious principle in man, fixed in the images of modern games and toys, are embodied, form the New World Order - all of them create a picture of the world of the last times, in which toys turn into Anti-Toys.
And it depends on us, adults, what will be in the hands of our children today - TOYS or ANTI-TOYS.
2nd edition, enlarged and corrected.
Read What our children play. Toy and anti-toy - Vera Abramenkova.

BEWARE TOYS!!! Vera Abramenkova - Doctor of Psychology, Chief Researcher at the Institute for the Development of Preschool Education of the Russian Academy of Education, Head of the Laboratory of Social Psychology of Childhood. Author of the books “What do our children play? A toy and an anti-toy”, “Child behind the screen”: “The tiny world of computer games”, “Education by game. We play with the child. Prepared by: teacher of the 2nd junior group Biryukova O.B.

How do some grandmothers do? The child stutters, and she buys monsters for him! Kindergarten teacher says: "What are you doing?!" And she: "Let him know how to fight, to defend himself."

You need to teach your child to play. In modern society there is no children's subculture, there is nothing that would be connected with the traditional game, when many children gathered, they shared counting rhymes, ideas. The tradition is gone, and the new reality is destructive. You watch in the kindergarten how the children play and what! .. At best, they rush about like mad.

It is very important that there is a joint game of parents with children. as well as a game between two children. In a joint game, both an adult and a child develop, who imperceptibly learns something very important. This experience is incomparable with any expensive toys.

It is an anti-toy that does not meet sanitary standards, carries aggression, makes an unpleasant sound, or is made of poisonous-colored materials. Even an ordinary pyramid can be an anti-toy. For example, if it has a cone-shaped tip, this prevents the child from building a hierarchy on their own, and it is precisely for its knowledge that the traditional pyramid was invented.

Robot At sale in the head of this robot "chupa-chups" was hidden. A robot is a dead, inanimate being, a mixture of man and machine. The child associates death with sweets, and it's scary! Children begin to unconsciously deny life. Russia comes out on top in the world in terms of the number of child suicides - about 2,500 children aged 5 to 18 die in the country every year.

Barbie Barbie is no longer fashionable, today the Bratz doll is at the peak of popularity. Her proportions are broken, and the shoes are removed along with part of the leg! One child asked me: is this an aunt or a girl? Unclear. It seems to be the proportions of a teenager, but the head of a hydrocephalus and bright makeup. A naive girl will think: that's where the beauty is!

The game of colored Kuizener counting sticks Develop in children the idea of a number based on counting and measurement With the help of colored sticks, it is also easy for children to bring to awareness of the relationship more - less, more - less by 1,2,3, teach how to divide the whole into parts and measure objects with conditional standards, exercise in memorizing the composition of numbers from units and smaller numbers, come close to addition, subtraction of numbers. In addition, while playing with sticks, children learn such concepts as “left”, “long”, “between”, “each”, “one of ...”, “some”, “be the same color”, “be not blue”, “have the same length”, etc. Sticks can also be used to compose various images

In the first part of the book, talking about the emergence and development of games and toys, the author clearly depicts the current state of games in Russia. It's just terrifying. Most of the toys serve the devil and do not teach children joy and Orthodox morality. There are more anti-toys than toys. I myself was convinced of this when I went to the children's store. The history of the fall of man from the purest that is - a baby, to an evil child who even at the age of 30 plays computer games is depicted by the author colorfully.
The second part tells what actually should be a toy and games without which it is impossible to raise a child. Tons of helpful tips and ideas.
The only, but important, remark to the book is that it is not structured enough, the thread of the narration is periodically lost and the theses that were previously voiced appear again. Let's be lenient towards women in the humanities :)

The most important thing that the book did was that it opened my eyes to what surrounds my child. Made me decide on the content requirements for toys. Total:
Toys for daughter:
1. Preferably dolls, the simplest ones (can be without faces). Better is a naked doll, which we will then independently supply with clothes. The doll must have a kind look on the face, especially the expression of the eyes, and be of a child's age. To have human and our race skin color and hair color. (Barbies, Kens and other Chinese-American products are anathematized and thrown into the trash). No electronics.
2. You can make a doll - an animal. Preferably a pet (cat, dog). Only a kind expression of the muzzle is obligatory, only natural colors and the cover inherent in this animal are obligatory, i.e. no lilac dogs or stuffed elephants. No electronics. Only natural materials. Animal toys - only those that are found in nature. No Shreks, Gnomes and other evil spirits. Exceptions are the heroes of good Soviet cartoons (for example: Cheburashka).
3. Rattles, etc. No electronics. The colors are natural. No acid colors.
4. No computer games. No gadgets before the need to contact the child.
5. Preferably designers, good books, ie. games and toys that have a creative beginning.
6. There should be few toys and their child should appreciate.
7. Games and clothes should preferably not contain foreign words and distorted images of animals and humans.
8. A good toy is one that is aimed at instilling Christian morality.

Wrote the rules. Now I will try to fulfill them. After all, I am raising my daughter, not she me.

And so that the child does not reach for all kinds of meaningless toys, one must pay less attention to the virtual world and more to communicate with the child. Actually, because of this, I began to write less often in LiveJournal.

A Brief History and Philosophy of the Toy

What is a toy in a child's life

Psychological mechanisms and forms of influence of a toy on a child

Dialogue of a child with a toy in the context of his spiritual and moral development

Symbolic anti-toy function

Examination of toys

A Brief History and Philosophy of the Toy

The game as a joint activity unregulated by adults becomes a way to overcome the gap in the intergenerational connection between adults and children, which was formed in society at a certain stage of sociogenesis due to the separation and isolation of the world of childhood from the world of adulthood. At the same time, children “seemed to be pushed out of the sphere of material production, fell out of the adult community and were left to themselves 1” [Elkonin, p.36.]

Then there were children's groups playing in which there was an assimilation of the general meanings and motives of human activity, the reproduction of social relations, religious ideas, rites and rituals. Through the game, children are included in the life of adults in an indirect form, satisfying their own need for involvement in what is happening, which is not just modeling the semantic field of adult activity, but free handling of its content. The most important component of the developmental environment for the child is game and toy.

The toy belongs to the fundamental universals of being, such as, for example, a house, a dwelling. It affirms the values of culture and passes on experience to new generations of people. It contains the potential for the development of culture, both negative and positive 2 .

The toy is not only an integral part of the game reality, or an element of the objective world included in the game, it is a kind of link between the child and the objective world. A toy is a purely human phenomenon, since in animal games it appears as a random object and is not endowed with a symbolic meaning, it is not specially made, it is not preserved or transferred to other creatures.

By the toy one can judge the era, the people, the features of aesthetics, psychology, worldview, socialization, it itself allows you to clarify the trends in the development of modern culture, to see the features of the picture of the world of a person, his value orientations. For example, the widespread use of optical toys in the 19th century reflected people's idea of the world as a picture, which is considered to have conditioned, anticipated, and set the stage for the invention of cinema. This indicates a special creative the function of a toy that anticipates the development of culture, in particular, scientific, technical and aesthetic ideas.

At the same time, the toy has a universal character; many peoples have strikingly similar game objects as uniform models of the ways in which a child masters reality: ancient rattles, dolls, tools, etc.

There is a hypothesis that the first cultural object not only in human life - ontogenesis, but also in the development of human society - sociogenesis, may have been just a toy, i.e. that had no direct utilitarian value. Ancient thinkers have long paid serious attention to children's toys. Aristotle persistently urged that, in the interests of education, suitable toys be invented for children, otherwise children, "having nothing to play with, will begin to break useful things in the house."

Aristotle (384 BC - c. 322 BC) is an ancient Greek philosopher-encyclopedist, the creator of the first systematized doctrine of the psyche. His main work - the treatise "On the Soul", had a huge impact on the development of world psychological thought, both natural science and religious and philosophical. In the context of education, an important thought A. was that knowledge of the norms as such does not in itself make a person moral.

The philosopher of Ancient Greece Archytas became famous, among other things, due to the fact that he invented a rattle for children, and the Swiss writer of the 18th century. Lavater came up with a game of wooden bricks for buildings, like our building designer.

Johann Caspar Lavater (1741-1801) - Swiss writer, author of the book for children "Little Bible". Wrote a treatise on physiognomy - the doctrine of the supposedly direct connection of the external appearance of a person with his personal characteristics and type of character.

According to well-known thinkers such as Froebel favorite toys of children can serve as the first test for educating the inquisitive mind and temperament.

Friedrich Fröbel (1782-1852) - a German teacher, theorist of preschool education, developed the idea of a kindergarten and the basics of the methodology for working in it. Froebel societies and courses for kindergarten teachers and families were very popular in Russia, which after 1917 were transformed into educational institutions.

Toys in the Russian tradition embodied the image of an ideal world, built a complete picture of the world. For the Russian tradition, the image of wild animals as toys was never welcomed, especially predators: a bear, a wolf, a wild boar, as well as images of the other world, evil spirits. This indicates that, apparently, the oral tradition - bylichki, fairy tales, folklore, in which such characters abounded, had no analogues in the children's toy tradition, and were not used or made in the "amusing craft". As for the system of influence of a traditional toy on the mind of a child, it was intuitively found, influencing all levels of sensations - tactile, visual, sound. Of particular importance was material from which the toys were made. For example, a rag doll, unlike a plastic one, removes the psychological barrier between a child and the "world of big things", brings up an affectionate, warm, joyful, trusting attitude towards the world, which is necessary for a full-fledged child's life 3 . That is why toys made from natural materials are so valued today.

In his work "Psychology of the game" D.B. Elkonin, in the chapter on the historical origin of the role-playing game, speaks of the fallacy of the views of E.A. Arkin on the origin of toys as unchanged throughout sociogenesis.

E.A. Arkin (1873-1948) - Russian and Soviet teacher and psychologist, specialist in the field of preschool childhood.

However, we can agree that with all the abundance of toys today, the child shows interest in what E.A. Arkin 4 called "primordial toys", these are:

sound toys - rattles, buzzers, rattles, bells and so on;

motor toys - top, snake, ball;

weapons - bow, arrows, boomerang, spear and so on;

figurative toys - dolls and animals;

rope, etc.

What is a toy in a child's life

A toy is not only an accompaniment to the game, not only a means of communication kid and adult, kid and peers, but also a means learning, remedy entertainment and even means treatment. The game and the toy are the most important components of any culture, therefore, what is the culture, so are the toys.

The toy is a cultural tool, through which it is transmitted in a special " folded form" the state of modern culture (civilization), its direction in motion: towards life or death, prosperity or degradation, towards mutual understanding or alienation. With the help of a toy, the very essence of human relations and a complex world order are conveyed to a child.

Game and toy - specific media, since they record all the main trends in influencing the consciousness and behavior of a person, the ways and means of his education. Media is built on the principles of the game, and games are built on the principles of the media. Evidence of this, in particular, is the endless games of adults on television in the absence of a children's educational channel.

Toy- cultural psychological means of mastering the child's own behavior. Fear of the dark, for example, can be overcome by a child with a toy wooden sword, a weapon of self-defense.

Toy - spiritual image ideal life, an ideal world, this is the archetype of ideas about good - real or imaginary. A genuine toy affirms goodness and presupposes the distinction between good and evil. For example, the ball symbolizes the perfect shape of the ball - the Sun or the sphere of the Earth. The pyramid is a hierarchical world order, the doll is the image of a person. If the simple-hearted love of an adult for a child is revealed in a traditional folk toy , recognition of his right to a special play space, then in the modern situation the toy is capable of creating monsters inside the soul of a small person. A modern industrial toy often forms and fixes such personality traits in a child as relaxed will, indifference of feelings, slow mind, consumerism.

In modern game civilization of adults When play, as the most important attribute of a child, is usurped by adults in a transformed form, the social situation of childhood is such that there is a tendency for the child's play culture to die out. Children stop playing! This is noted with concern by many scientists in the world, warning of unpredictable consequences. A toy that can affect a child in a special way.

Current page: 10 (total book has 31 pages) [available reading excerpt: 21 pages]

Chapter Summary

The emergence of a children's subculture as a holistic historical and cultural phenomenon is due to the gender and age stratification of society, which has its roots in ancient times. With the development of human society, these forms became more and more autonomized, making the transition from direct imitation of the labor, household and ritual actions of adults to play as a special unproductive form of activity, thanks to which the child's own behavior is controlled.

Creative, biased processing of the cumulative experience of previous generations in the game is a condition for the autonomization of the world of childhood and the emergence of a wide range of phenomena of children's subculture, such as various genres children's folklore , these include, in particular: teasers(nominal - for boys and girls), as well as teasers that make fun of children's shortcomings and misconduct (sneakiness, boasting, stupidity, tearfulness, greed). Teasers train emotional stability and self-control, the ability to defend oneself when peers attack in an adequate form of verbal self-defense - teasing excuses.

horror story- verbal dramatization of relationships in a children's group, acting as a means of mastering the child's own behavior, this is a kind of group psycho-training of children's fears, fear of the dark, etc.

Genre counting rhymes is unique, unparalleled in adult folklore and is a culturally designed prelude to the game. Together with the traditional, primarily collective game, counting rhymes and other forms of drawing lots are a socio-cultural design and implementation of game and para-game relations in the children's community.

Giving nicknames and nicknames- this is a means of tabooing personal names, as well as "secret languages", serve to isolate and autonomize the children's community, its clear structuring and form of its individualization, and in some cases it is a modeling of the role program of relations and behavior of the child in the social organization of the children's community.

Children's word creation- Changelings - special verbal microforms in which a norm or phenomenon is turned inside out, generally accepted ideas are problematized.

Due to the special mythology of children's consciousness with faith in the supernatural, the need to find the highest center of the whole world, its Creator and Almighty, every child naturally religious.

The laughter world of childhood built into the children's subculture along with the world of the terrible, dangerous, as well as the world of the divine, mystical - in the socio-cultural regulation of the life of the children's community.

Questions for creative reflection and self-examination

1. What does it mean: a children's subculture is a world for itself? What aspects can be highlighted here?

2. As one French writer noted, "The best educators are peers, for they are ruthless." Is this statement correct? What do you think a person of what era could say that?

4. What genres of children's folklore are typical for preschoolers, ml. students, teenagers?

5. Why is the children's community the most ancient institution of socialization?

6. What are the main characteristics of the zone of variable development (ZVR) in contrast to the ZPD?

7. What are the functions of children's subculture? What does its predictive function mean? Give examples.

Chapter 6
Toy and anti-toy in children's subculture

A Brief History and Philosophy of the Toy

P.36.]

Then there were children's groups playing in which there was an assimilation of the general meanings and motives of human activity, the reproduction of social relations, religious ideas, rites and rituals. Through the game, children are included in the life of adults in an indirect form, satisfying their own need for involvement in what is happening, which is not just modeling the semantic field of adult activity, but free circulation with its content. The most important component of the developmental environment for the child is game and toy.

The toy belongs to the fundamental universals of being, such as, for example, a house, a dwelling. It affirms the values of culture and passes on experience to new generations of people. It contains the potential for the development of culture - both negative and positive. 38
Abramenkova V.V. What are our children playing? Toy and anti-toy. M., 2006

At the same time, the toy has a universal character. Many peoples have strikingly similar game objects as uniform models of how a child masters reality: ancient rattles, dolls, tools, etc.

There is a hypothesis that the first cultural object, not only in human life - ontogenesis, but also in the development of human society - sociogenesis, may have been just a toy, that is, something that had no direct utilitarian significance. Ancient thinkers have long paid serious attention to children's toys. Aristotle persistently urged that, in the interests of education, suitable toys be invented for children, otherwise children, "having nothing to play with, will begin to break useful things in the house."

Aristotle (384 BC - c. 322 BC) is an ancient Greek philosopher-encyclopedist, the creator of the first systematized doctrine of the psyche. His main work - the treatise "On the Soul" - had a huge impact on the development of world psychological thought, both natural science and religious and philosophical. In the context of education, an important thought A. was that knowledge of the norms as such does not in itself make a person moral.

Johann Caspar Lavater (1741–1801) was a Swiss writer and author of the Little Bible for children. Wrote a treatise on physiognomy - the doctrine of the supposedly direct connection of the external appearance of a person with his personal characteristics and type of character.

According to well-known thinkers such as Frebel, favorite toys of children can serve as the first test for educating the inquisitive mind and temperament.

Friedrich Fröbel (1782-1852) - a German teacher, theorist of preschool education, developed the idea of a kindergarten and the basics of the methodology for working in it. Froebel societies and courses for kindergarten teachers and families were very popular in Russia, which after 1917 were transformed into educational institutions.

Toys in the Russian tradition embodied the image of an ideal world, built a complete picture of the world. For the Russian tradition, the image of wild animals as toys was never welcomed, especially predators: a bear, a wolf, a wild boar, as well as images of the other world, evil spirits. This indicates that, apparently, the oral tradition - bylichki, fairy tales, folklore, in which such characters abounded, had no analogues in the children's toy tradition, and were not used or made in the "amusing craft". As for the system of influence of a traditional toy on the mind of a child, it was intuitively found, influencing all levels of sensations - tactile, visual, sound. Of particular importance was material from which the toys were made. For example, it is believed that a rag doll, unlike a plastic one, removes the psychological barrier between the child and the "world of big things", brings up an affectionate, warm, joyful, trusting attitude towards the world, which is necessary for a full-fledged child's life. 39
Dine G. L., Dine M. B. Russian rag doll. M. 2007

That is why toys made from natural materials are so valued today.

In his work “Psychology of the Game”, D. B. Elkonin, in the chapter on the historical origin of the role-playing game, speaks of the erroneous views of the famous teacher E. A. Arkin on the origin of the toy as unchanged throughout sociogenesis.

E. A. Arkin (1873-1948) - Russian and Soviet teacher and psychologist, specialist in the field of preschool childhood.

However, we can agree that with all the abundance of toys today, the child shows interest in what E. A. Arkin40
Arkin E. A. A child and his toy in the conditions of primitive culture. M., 1935

He called them "original toys", these are:

1. sound toys - rattles, buzzers, rattles, bells and so on;

2. motor toys - top, kite, ball;

3. weapons - bow, arrows, boomerang, spear and so on;

4. figurative toys - dolls, animals, birds;

5. and also - a rope, a pebble, a stick, etc.

What is a toy in a child's life

Toy- cultural psychological means of mastering the child's own behavior. Fear of the dark, for example, can be overcome by a child with a toy wooden sword, a weapon of self-defense.

Game and toy - a specific medium, since they record all the main trends in influencing the consciousness and behavior of a person, the ways and means of his education. The media is built on the principles of the game, and games are often built on the principles of the media. Evidence of this, in particular, is the endless games of adults on television in the absence of a children's educational channel.

Toy - spiritual image ideal life, an ideal world, this is the archetype of ideas about good - real or imaginary. A genuine toy affirms goodness and presupposes the distinction between good and evil. For example, the ball symbolizes the perfect shape of the ball - the Sun or the sphere of the Earth. The pyramid is a hierarchical world order, and the doll is the image of a person. If in a traditional folk toy the simple-hearted love of an adult for a child, recognition of his right to a special play space is revealed, then in the modern situation the toy is capable of creating monsters inside the soul of a small person. A modern industrial toy often forms and fixes such personality traits in a child as relaxed will, indifference of feelings, slow mind, consumerism.

In modern game civilization of adults When play as the most important attribute of a child's life is usurped by adults in a transformed form, the social situation of childhood is such that there is a tendency for the child's play culture to die out. Children stop playing! This is noted with concern by many scientists in the world, warning of unpredictable consequences.

Psychological mechanisms and forms of influence of a toy on a child

Emotional identification as putting oneself in the place of a toy, introducing its characteristics into the child's behavior. For a 10-month-old girl, a doll with rope hands provoked a relaxed posture and "facial expression". Today in Russia, there are almost no positive images and characters but negative ones abound: cruel, heartless, demonic.

Communication optimization like establishing a relationship with a toy as with a living being. Favorite toy is a friend who "will not leave you in trouble, will not ask too much."

positive expectations. Trust in a toy as a lack of installation on a possible threat. The child does not expect aggression, betrayal from the toy in general and is aware of his responsibility to it.

In "Experimental Psychology" the Swiss psychologist R. Meili, 41
Meili R. Personality Structure // Experimental Psychology / Ed. P. Fresse and J. Piaget. - M., 1975. Issue. v.

Who uses the term identification to denote the mechanism of formation of the "Super-I" of the child's personality, writes: " Even when a child portrays a locomotive, a lion or a lamb, he symbolically realizes that aspect of his personality that seems desirable to him." [R. Meili, p. 198]. Consequently, the child's ability to identify extends to inanimate, from the point of view of an adult, objects due to children's animism and the mythological nature of consciousness.

A special place in the play space belongs to anthropomorphized toys - dolls, soft animals, which are given the appearance of a person. A Russian traditional doll is an interlocutor or an ideal image of a baby, a daughter who has a name and character. Such a doll did not have a face, a baby doll could not have arms and legs, and the infantile physicality and defenselessness was transmitted in a generalized form of a sling. The child, finding himself in a dialogue with such a doll in the “inclined plane of relations”, is in the upper position, as if he appears to be an adult. Here, a model of ideal human relations between an adult and a child is realized: to treat, teach, feed, bathe, etc., where the child finds himself in the position of a caring adult. The ideal I of a girl in the future is a mother with a baby, where the embodiment of the archetype of motherhood takes place. A doll according to D. B. Elkonin is not only a communication partner in the game, but also Ideal Friend Deputy who understands everything and does not remember evil.

Dialogue of a child with a toy in the context of his spiritual and moral development

In recent decades, special attention has been paid in Russia to the issues of spiritual and moral education of the younger generation, since it is becoming more and more obvious that all the educational efforts of the state and the family are insufficient, and sometimes futile, when it comes to the upbringing of the individual, the development of conscience and responsibility for one's actions.

The root of all negative processes in personality development is in spiritual and moral sphere, the motivational and personal development of the child, the values of his life, in terms of physical and mental health, which ultimately come down to harmony (or violation) of his relationship with the world: the environment, adults / peers and himself. Unlike spiritual and moral education (DNV) as a purposeful process of influencing a child, carried out by adults, spiritual and moral development (DPR)- this is a kind of consequence of such an impact, of what happens to the child himself. The DPR is a unity of interdependent processes: formation(as natural maturation, growth), formation(as acquiring a form, a model) and transformations(as a blessed change in the inner world) [Slobodchikov V.I.].

Main means upbringing that contributes to the full development of the child, including spiritual and moral, is the creation of a personality-forming educational environment, in which an adequate hierarchy of goals and values of a person's life and the necessary components of his full-fledged life activity are laid. The most important component of the educational environment for a child is a game and a toy. The child identifies himself with the toy, not only with its “habits”, appearance, but also with its hidden essence, entering into personal-semantic relations with it, in dialogue.

In such a peculiar dyad, the position of the child with the doll is formed (in an inclined or horizontal plane, above or below) in relation to the doll. With a traditional doll, the child finds himself in a hierarchical inclined plane, where he is on top - in the position ideal me. However, the baby, at times, is inclined to endow the doll with his cash, real I with all the shortcomings and unseemly actions, so that the responsibility for them lies with the doll (for example, when asked who broke the cup, the child readily answers: “This is Katya”, i.e. the doll or bear is endowed with similar negative actions).

Modern dolls, especially baby bon, other talking dolls 42
Such dolls, as well as, for example, electronic dogs, are called interactive today, i.e. literally interacting with the child, while interaction assumes the equality of subjects, which is impossible with a toy and is not useful for a child.

As if "they themselves play with the child", they manipulate him, putting him in a position from below, when the imperfect real me drowns out the ideal I of the child [Florenskaya T. A. 43
Florenskaya T. A. Dialogue in practical psychology M., 1991

The dialogue of a child with a toy, which he endows with the quality of subjectivity, is carried out as with an ideal self. If an anthropomorphized object depicts a peer or an adult, then the quality of the ideal self is preserved in the horizontal plane. A barbie doll, a “talking” doll, a robot-transformer, etc., set a different, inclined plane of relations with the child from below, where he finds himself in the position of the “real I”, which produces a sense of inferiority, dependence. There is no vertical relationship with the spiritual world. Hence the tragic cases of childhood suicide and anorexia 44
Anorexia is a disease in which, due to a strict diet or fasting for weight loss, the body refuses to eat, which leads to irreversible consequences.

Girls as a reaction of non-conformity to the external image (for example, barbie) as a model.

Therefore, it is extremely important to define spiritual and moral sense toys for a child, what values it transmits, whether it contributes to the formation of conscience, the distinction between good and evil, the desire to follow moral standards. The absence of this criterion turns the toy into antitoy.

Symbolic anti-toy function

Any toy is endowed by a child with a certain semantic content, which does not always coincide with the cultural purpose and with the images of an adult. This is clearly seen in the example of objects turned into toys by a child, primarily household items - knives, glass glasses, hot irons - those that are dangerous. However, the danger may be contained in the toy itself as a sign. Any action played by a child is capable of reproducing itself in reality. If a child in the game is able to behave humanely, mercifully, caringly, then he has a certain model of how this should be done. And vice versa, if a child in the game is forced to be aggressive, rude, cruel, this will definitely reproduce itself sometime in this or that situation. THE TOY PROGRAMS the child's behavior in a special way. And it is important to understand how the toy affects and what kind of program it carries. Since there is good and evil, an ideal and an anti-ideal, a toy can be an anti-toy.

Antitoy is not just a bad toy: for example, poorly made, roughly painted, with sharp edges or small details. Often anti-toys can be outwardly impeccably made from environmentally friendly materials "branded" foreign-made products that meet all the necessary sanitary and psychological requirements.

An anti-toy is a specific medium that promotes anti-values; by this it often poses a danger to the life and health of children, or can harm their normal physical, mental and moral development. The spiritual and moral meaning of a toy is its most important characteristic.

Russian children have archetypal models of perception of the surrounding reality inherited from their ancestors: images of natural landscapes, interiors of houses and household utensils, human types, etc. American soldiers and weapons, Lego constructors with game cards depicting any country in the world, except for the Russian one, the appearance of a man-doll (transformer, spider-man, mutant turtles, etc.), color forms of designers, etc. - all of them do not give a positive attitude towards the native country and the experience of knowing one's own culture, traditions, visual and conceptual language.

Modern toys, as a rule, do not correspond to these models, and sometimes directly contradict them. Being engaged, at times, with toys of foreign origin, the baby, as it were, receives the first experience of cultural colonization, facing the need to reject, alienate his traditions and submit to the foreign toy world. So, in the life of a child, the first socio-cultural trauma may occur, due to which a complex of cultural, national inferiority is then formed, which is so characteristic of many modern adults.

The Soviet artist R. Falk, being in Germany in the 20s and seeing the abundance of toys in stores, gave an accurate description of these toys as anti-toys and their meaning for adults: “ the local society uses the toy to curb the fantasy, the spontaneity of the child, not yet enslaved by machines, in order to instill in him those tastes and inclinations that will make him in the future an obedient instrument of his goals and his laws.45
Falk R.R. Conversations about art. Letters. Memories. M., 1987. S. 48

».

In addition, foreign toys can contribute to the destruction of the link between generations in the family, even in infancy, projecting a fault line between fathers and children, grandfathers and grandchildren due to different cultural orientations.

Vera abramenkova what our children play. Beware of toys!!! Vera Abramenkova – Doctor of Psychology, Chief Researcher at the Institute for the Development of Preschool Education of the Russian Academy. Why do we need a game and a toy

Annotation for the book "What our children play. A toy and an anti-toy"

Chapter 6 Toy and anti-toy in children's subculture

Chapter 6
Toy and anti-toy in children's subculture