We are lucky in the West, or most of it anyway, because the European Community, north America and Canada have strict laws on how safe kids’ toys ought to be.
Despite this, there are plenty of deceitful people about who will import cheap junk toys that could be dangerous to children, which means that anyone buying children’s toys has to have their wits about them.
Having said that, the larger stores do do their best to weed out the rogue importers and in fact most of the dangerous children’s toys are weeded out before they go on sale. Be wary in discount shops and open-air markets though.
Once you get your safe kids’ toys home, the time to be cautious starts. This is because most accidents in the home relating to toys do not happen to the person that the toys were purchased for. This is because adults trip over them. The stairs are the most dangerous
The first thing that anyone buying toys must look for is the label. In the United States this is known as the CPSC (Consumer Product Safety Commission) and in Europe it is known as the Certificat European (CE). However, be cautious, because these labels can be faked very easily.
If you are not accustomed to purchasing toys for children, the next marker to look for is the age range for which the toy is meant. Typically the marker will give 5+ or 7-12, so you still have to exercise some judgment.
Educational toys are important to children and one of the best of these that you can add to as the child grows older is Lego. Duplo is the kind of Lego that is most suited to very young children.
This is because Duplo building blocks are better than the standard Lego building blocks so that tiny hands can manage them easily.
One of the biggest risks for very young children is choking. Young children put everything into their mouths but Lego has manufactured these Duplo building blocks too big to swallow.
As your child grows older, you can add to the Lego set right up to adulthood. There are Lego electric motors for teenagers and there are many adults that have continued using Lego well past their Twenties.
If however your child does have an mishap with a toy, you should endeavour to find out how it happened immediately after seeing to your child.
If the accident was obviously the child’s fault or someone else’s, you can report it if you like, but if the difficulty came about because of a difficulty or failure inherent in the toy, you ought to report it.
The first location to report the toy is to the local authorities and then you should inform the manager of the shop where you bought it. Hold onto the toy until the wheels of bureaucracy turn enough to get around to you
They will come back to you and you may save other children and their parents from going through the same problems that you did.
Owen Jones, the writer of this piece, writes on a variety of topics, but is now concerned with Frontline Figures. If you want to know more, please visit our website at Great Kids’ Toys.