ABSTRACT
Playing is seen as the domain for young children and there is now a massive
industry of designer and computerised toys, and essential items that parents
feel they should buy in order to give their child the best possible chance in
life. And time and time again we find that children prefer to play with the
boxes that the equipment comes in, and to tear up the paper in which it is
wrapped and wear the bows and ribbons in their hair and make use of the
labels as train tickets. Children will always make something into something
else: this is the nature of their imaginative drive – if, of course, they are
allowed to experiment and are not ridiculed for using something ‘as it is not
meant to be used’!
