A reporter called me the other day, to ask about why young boys so enjoyed playing with and crashing toy cars. Toy play for children has several different functions. And such play is often different for boys than it is for girls. First of all, play gives children a sense of mastery over a world that is scaled to adult powers and abilities. When playing with toy cars boys can fantasize that they are driving real cars and that they have the skill of racecar drivers. In addition boys can use car toy play as a means of expressing their creativity and ingenuity. They can create hurdles and open spaces for the cars to fly over at mach speed.

But toy play also serves a therapeutic function. Sometimes it is hard to be a child, to have adults set all the rules and limits. Adults can also be thoughtless and insensitive when they break promises without apology and fail to use the “please” and “thank you,” that they demand of children. When boys crash their toy cars into barriers or other cars, they can express their anger and frustration without fear of adult retribution. Toy play can be a safe way of dealing with children’s understandable hostility towards adults. Finally toy play is a way of establishing kinship bonds with other children. Boys who may not know one another may still enjoy playing cars with one another. The activity and their small size in contrast to adults is a uniting force.

For girls toy play serves similar functions as it does for boys, but in a different way. It is not clear to what extent boy car play and girl doll play is socially scripted or gender based, probably a bit of both. Girls, like boys, use their toy doll play as a way of dealing with their smallness and weakness in a grown up sized and ordered world. Yet, whereas boys feel anger and frustration at being in this position, girls find it a source of safety and protection. Hence their doll play is an expression, and mastery of, positive rather than negative emotions. Girls too use doll play to nourish their curiosity and imagination and often create their own narratives for their doll play.

Like car toy play, doll play can also serve a therapeutic function. When a new baby arrives, for example, doll play may help the girl deal with any feelings of displacement in her parent’s affections. Initially this may even be aggressive, but if handled well - if the girl is allowed to help with the baby car - it will turn into a positive imitative form of play. Finally doll play, like car play, can serve as an activity that brings girls together. For girls, however, the social interaction often becomes more important than the toy play whereas for boys just the opposite is likely to be the case. Put differently, in girls it is the social interaction that builds the kinship bond, whereas for boys it is the activity.

Toy play, even when it may seem aggressive and hostile, may still serve an important and healthy developmental function.