Disability toys

Did anyone see on the news tonight about a woman who is persuading toy manufacturers to make toys showing disabilities?

So far, they showed a doll with glasses on and another one wearing a pink hearing aid.
Lego makers won't comply apparently.

What are your thoughts on doing this, is it a good idea or not?

Re: Disability toys

I think this is a good idea, it could help children realise disabilities ,and maybe comfort children with disabilitiesto have a toy'just like them '

Re: Disability toys

If toys are supposed to reflect the real world then yes they should show all sorts of people with all sorts of body shape and disability.

Re: Disability toys

Originally Posted by Cass ->

If toys are supposed to reflect the real world

I bet this will be the start of all sorts now. The possibilities are endless if they really want to represent 'the real world.'

Maybe one day they will even make 'Wrinkly' dolls who look like us oldies instead of the fresh young things they've always turned out before.

Re: Disability toys

I thought disability dolls had been around some time there is one with a child in a wheelchair. Maybe it came from the USA.

I think they are a good idea, they provide something with which disabled children can identify should they choose to have one but the decision should be theirs.

Re: Disability toys

Hmm,not sure. Do you think children may see their disability being made an example, it's almost patronising. How far do you go,with a disability. Disabled children like to feel they are normal,and making a doll with a disability will underline that they are not physical normal. Just thinking aloud really. I can see why some companies would not take part, from a financial perspective there isn't going to be a big market.

Re: Disability toys

That's precisely what I wondered as well Celyn. Will they be making dolls with limbs missing next I wonder?

Re: Disability toys

Yep - not sure on this one at all
Disabilities would be better 'discussed' in the classroom and home

Re: Disability toys

I don’t know whether it’s a good thing or a bad thing, but heres my tuppence worth anyway.
Children have coped with their friends having various handicaps in their own way for generations now, why should we go sticking it into their faces every time they pick up a doll, who knows they might be handicapped themselves some day, but in the meantime it’s tough enough growing up these days without turning our children into guilt ridden wreaks before they even reach adulthood. Let them enjoy their little magic world where happiness reigns for the few short years thats in it.
If we really want to be realistic about telling them the cruelties of life why don’t we go the whole hog and tell them that when they die their bodies get burned in a furnace or buried in a hole until they rot with only the bones left, and they won’t go to a happy place no matter how good they are, lets face it with heaven gone now thats the truth ain’t it? Or do we like to only tell them our selected truths?

No, spare them the miseries I think, life will be cruel enough to them when they are older.

Re: Disability toys

Rather than dolls let them learn comfortably to intergrate with the living who have disabilities, rather than a lump of plastic.Integrate the disabled with the non disabled let them feel they are the same, perhaps a different shape, or size. We are all living human beings perhaps diferent colours too, as well as shapes.

Just a little aside. My husband has Motor Neurone Disease. My grandkids think it's really cool that they have a Grandad that has a lift the can go up and down through the floor and they can go up and down too, they used to climb on a chair to feed him a few years ago. They get rides on his powered chair and one of the best things is, even though Grandad may not be able to move, speak or eat, is when he hads a nebuliser steam comes out of his mouth. Now who else in their class has a Grandad who can turn himself into a dragon. They have learnt that disabilities are not all bad.