Why I disliked "bring your toy into school" day.

Post Reply New Topic

I was quite a focused child when I played with my toys when I was younger, each toy held their own plot line and role and their role never changed.

So I found other kids who would give the same toy different roles to be quite odd, because to me I felt deeply connected to each toy and changing the identity I had given that toy just felt wrong. I was somewhat possessive of my toys, and didn't like others to play with them, because I considered the way they played with them to be "the wrong way" and that my way was "the right way".

My toys were more like my imaginary friends rather than just objects to me. If I had a problem, I would summon all the "teddy kingdoms" and talk it over with myself. But overtime I've noted that quite a few kids don't do this, some just treat them like objects and have no quarrels with changing their character.

I disliked "bring your toy into school" day because other kids would pick up my toy and say "Hey, this one can be *insert role here*" and I would argue "But, that's not who they are! You can't just change that!", and the other kids didn't get what was such a big deal over it, so they would try and play regardless and I would continue to complain about it until I got my toy back.

Looking back my behaviour probably came across as quite spoiled, but fiction was a big part of my life (still is in some ways), and playing with my toys was sort of an escape for me. It allowed me to have some time to myself, I disliked when adults or other children tried to play with me when I was coming up with my stories for the toys.

So I would go off by myself, and if there was anyone nearby I would drop whatever I was doing and pretend that I wasn't just playing with toys, that way they'd leave me alone and I could play by myself.

Other times I would just tell people that they were "ruining the plot line of the story" or "breaking continuity rules" in my games.

There were moments where my family would tease me and place my teddies in silly positions, and I'd cry over it because my toys were almost real to me. Of course I knew they weren't real, but I disliked it when people treated them that way and felt like it was "disrespectful to their characters/ ruined the story".

"You don't get it! They aren't just a toy to me!" I would complain. Especially when it came to this one particular toy dog called Lucky.

...Anyone relate?

I really wasn’t all that much into “pretend” when I was young. I didn’t really take it that seriously. I was more into sports.

In my experience, girls tended to take role-playing games more seriously. I knew very young girls who had elaborate “worlds” based on their dolls.

Also: I wasn’t really all that bright as a kid. I was more into facts than creative things.

Kind of. I remember when I was 6 when used to play with these plastic tracks. Some had road pattern printed on them and some had railway pattern printed on them. We started building a town with the road tracks and I thought it was a lot of fun until we ran out of the road pattern tracks so they just joined on the railway pattern tracks. They made me very upset. I insisted that cars can't drive on railway tracks. They didn't care. In retrospect I probably looked like a spoiled brat.

I always wanted a train set. My parents were afraid I would break it. With some justification.

I spoke to a friend about this the other day, he completely understood and explained how he was also possessive over his toys and their story lines.

People like to joke that he's my second conscious due to the fact we are both quite similar in personality, and that conversation just goes to show it.