Time is best gift for kids at Christmas, say experts

Enjoy a day at the beach with the family. Photo / Martin Sykes

If you're worrying about not being able to afford expensive presents for the kids this Christmas, give yourself a break - cheap toys and spending time with children are better for their development, experts say.

Plunket's national community development manager, Claire Rumble, said anything the family could do together helped a child's learning.

"A parent is a child's greatest play toy," Mrs Rumble said.

"The best thing for children's learning and development are open-ended toys that can be used in different ways. Things like paint, and felt pens and paper, for instance, are very open-ended - and cheap," she said.

Megan Fowler, a registered clinical psychologist, said when her son was young he liked to ride a wooden horse and used a pudding bowl as a helmet.

One Christmas, she bought him a "flash" Mickey Mouse helmet.

"He opened his present and a couple of days later he hopped on the horse and he said, 'Where's my helmet?' He wanted his bowl back.

"I think that was a very good lesson for me as a parent, that kids don't need sophisticated toys, they're quite capable of using their imagination and learning without that stuff - they just need the freedom to do it.

"It's keeping it simple, isn't it? Often as adults we put a lot of pressure on ourselves to provide in a certain way, whereas I don't think that children necessarily share that expectation.

"It's about parents spending time with their children and playing and some children don't even require toys to play.

"Sophisticated toys, I wouldn't have thought, add anything to children's experience other than make parents think they're doing something. What children need are parents who engage with them and play and are outside doing physical things.

"Family time and hanging out at the beach and all those kinds of things are a lot less expensive and probably much more beneficial for everyone."

Psychologist David Stebbing said parents could reduce the pressure to spend by not setting the benchmark too high from the beginning.

"Kids tend to remember events that involve doing things with somebody else. Kids don't tend to remember the present they got when they were 8, but they might remember the holiday they had with the family at the beach or the time they went camping."

Toyworld buyer Repeka Haurua said last month that electronics could not substitute for family games and outdoor toys which offered interaction.

"[Children] have play patterns where you can't sit in a corner with no friends, with only your iPad," she said.

"A 5-year-old will always want Lego and the latest comic books and trading cards."

IMAGINATIVE GIFTS

* Let children play with paint, pens and paper.

* Have a box of dress-ups for imaginary play.

* For toddlers, fill a basket with safe, clean products from around the house and let them learn about touch and texture.

* Play with balloons.

* Go to the beach for a family day out.

* Play board games.