Incremental toy giving

Incremental toy giving is an approach in which toys are given to kids incrementally. This is the opposite to the anointed Christmas tradition when toys are delivered in a single batch. When toys are spaced in time, the educational benefits per toy increase. This is a classic manipulation of environment for the sake of affecting intrinsic motivation. The benefits of incremental toy giving have many parallels with Advantages of incremental reading.

Question

FAQ question. What are FAQs?

GZ suggested: I have doubts about your incremental toy giving idea. When I was 4 years old, my grandma had a box of toys and I always chose the same one. Over time I got bored with it, and explored the rest, always having a new favourite. So it does not seem so clearly 'sub-optimum’ to me

This FAQ expands on the content of "I would never send my kids to school" by Piotr Wozniak (2017)

Answer

Exposure eliminates novelty. This undermines the learn drive. If the kid gets 5 toys and chooses one, his brain labels the remaining toys as "inferior". With each repeated exposure, i.e. choosing the superior toy, the memory stability of the label "inferior" gets reinforced making the other toys seem even more inferior. For a switch of toys to happen, the chosen toy must wear off its novelty and the creative play potential until it falls below the novelty level of the remaining toys. Then the child can choose a new toy, and the brain can resume the algorithm from the start. However, the second choice toy won't produce the same level of reward as it might have if it was chosen at the very beginning.

On the other hand, if you expose the kid to one toy at a time, and watch for signs of boredom, you can expose it to another toy with the maximum possible perception of novelty. High novelty leads to high reward which leads to high exploration and high creativity. As a result, the kid gets cognitively more value from the same toy.

The problem is not with the optimality of the learn drive itself, but with the environment in which the kid operates. As with the appetite control, it is better to release an animal in a jungle than it is to release it in a desert. Those two ecosystems will have dramatically different nutritional outcomes while still operating the same appetite control system.

When Nicholas Carr complains that "Google makes us stupid", he refers to an analogous phenomenon affecting the adult world. For an unprepared mind, the web is like a free toy shop for kids. Without a degree of self-discipline, it is easy to get confused in this new electronic world. To a degree, incremental reading is a response to a new environment in which information is cheap, but knowledge is still hard to build up. In the same way as the Internet makes us smarter, toys can assist brain development. Incremental approach is helpful for both children and adults.