By Katelyn Fry

Over the weekend, I got the chance to have some one-on-one time with my girlfriend’s year-and-a-half old baby brother. We had his toy cars, books, favorite stuffed animal, and an electronic toy piano laid out on the floor. I offered him each one to play with, but with no success. Then, suddenly, his eyes opened wide as he broke out in a smile. He ran to the nightstand and grabbed  Chapstick®, a glasses case, and TV remote. He didn’t let these three items out of his sight for the next hour, completely ignoring his real toys.

This isn’t the first time I’ve witnessed this kind of behavior in toddlers, and I’m sure it’s not the first time many of you are hearing of it. So what is it exactly about these random, every day objects that have kids so fascinated?

So why is it that my girlfriend’s baby brother showed no interest in his light-up, sound-making piano, or in rolling his cars across the floor? Why did he find way more pleasure in repeatedly opening up the glasses case, putting the Chapstick® inside, closing it, and then taking it out and doing it all over again?

In her VeryWell.com essay, Sensory Stage of Cognitive Development, About.com psychology expert, Kendra Sherry offers some insight by calling on psychologist Jean Piaget's theory of cognitive development. Between birth and age two, children undergo four stages of cognitive development, beginning with the sensorimotor stage. During this stage, “an infant's knowledge of the world is limited to his or her sensory perceptions and motor activities.”

In other words, during this stage of cognitive development, babies are mainly relying on their senses to explore and learn about the world they live in. They are just now beginning to walk, use their own hands, and gain more control of, as well as more understanding about, their environment. They are gaining knowledge by doing – touching, seeing, tasting, smelling and hearing for themselves - rather than observing.

The National Association for the Education of Young Children offers a good example - and one I’m sure we’re all familiar with - in “Why Do Babies Like Boxes Best?” One-year-old Ella gets a musical stuffed elephant for her birthday. She is mildly amused at first, but then proceeds to give all her attention to the wrapping paper and the box the elephant came in. According to the NYAEC, she does this because “the elephant does not offer the endless opportunities that the box and the paper do for exploring with all the senses.”

Like many toys, the elephant has only one function: it plays music. And that's similar to other simple toys like toy cars that roll across the floor, balls that bounce, and coloring books that are colored in. And similarly, it's why we see a box as a kind of container. But in the eyes of a toddler,  it can have much more meaning. As the NYAEC explains with their example, Ella can scrunch or rip the paper and hear the noise it makes, see what shapes the paper can take, and empty, flip or bang on the box like a drum.

So the next time you give a baby niece or nephew - or any child - a gift and they seem to favor the box that it came in over the content inside, or if they seem more interested in your car keys, don’t take to mean they don't like the gift. An ordinary object to us, like box filled with tissue paper, can be a whole new world of discovery for babies. In other words, even just with your gift box, you're supporting your nieces' and nephews' cognitive development.

Photo: Paha_L
Published: January 18, 2017