CHILDREN

Toys for troubled tots

The toy industry has come in for some bad press lately. The Masters of the Universe range of dolls, for example, was particularly singled out in the run-up to Christmas for encouraging violence among children: the frightening war-weapons and the amoral attitudes expressed in the packaging were deemed by some to be harmful to a child’s mental development. It is a complaint which has also been levelled at several other types of "action men" over the years. But in an atmosphere of such hostility it is easy to overlook other dolls which are socially useful.

Hal’s Pals are a remarkable idea just introduced into this country from America. They are dolls designed specifically with disabled children in mind and come complete not with tanks and ray-guns but with wheelchairs, white sticks and hearing aids. They represent a toy with which the handicapped can identify – a pal who has the same disabilities as themselves. Marking as they do a new sensitivity to this previously ignored market among toy manufacturers, creator Susan Anderson has this to say: "They are important psychological tools in the growing campaign against exclusion, discrimination and prejudice against the disabled.” Already a great success in the US, the Pals look set to make a similar impact here.

But this is not the only idea in health care that is recognizing the psychological worth of cuddly companions. In several London hospitals, for instance, dolls and teddy bears are often used to explain to a child what a particular illness or operation involves. Although there have been problems (at Great Ormond Street an experiment using a doll which came apart to show internal organs was abandoned for being too horrific), a growing number of doctors now believe that treating the child’s favorite toy in just the same way as the child himself can have a comforting effect.

If a child is having an operation, the teddy will be taken into the theatre and stitched up and bandaged in the same way as the patient—the dressing to be removed simultaneously with the child’s when the time comes. In this way anxiety is allayed and the child goes through the often-traumatic experience of surgery with a “friend". The psychology is in many ways the same as for Hal’s Pals—the infant has someone to identify with.

It has taken a long time for the decision-makers of the toy industry to realize that some children are not masters of their universe. Inventive surgeons have been more sensitive and are achieving much with a simple and more pragmatic view of a child’s relationship with its toys. Indeed, as any child knows, a doll is not just a bundle of fluff, plastic, and grown-up preconceptions, but is real—a friend and confidante. And just like a real person why shouldn’t it be disabled or get ill sometimes? — Roger Sabin

Hals Pals retail information from Nottingham Rehab (0602 234251), January 1988.

De que maneira os "Hal’s Pals" são importantes psicologicamente?