Toys? Activities? What Do These Words Make You Think?

I recently read a post about an interactive cat that had been donated to someone living with dementia. It moved, meowed and responded to touch, and was bringing pleasure not only to her but to other residents too.

But one sentence made me pause:

“It may be a toy, but the happiness and affection it brings are very real.”

I understood exactly what the writer meant. We associate toys with children, so when something described as a toy is given to an adult, particularly an adult living with dementia, there can be an instinctive need to explain or defend it.

But it made me wonder. What actually is a toy? And why do we give them to children?

What are children doing when they play?

When my grandson Rory was tiny, I spent a lot of time watching him.

He was born only a few weeks after my mum died, at a time when my dad was already deep into his dementia. Perhaps that combination made me notice things I hadn't noticed when my own children were small. Or perhaps I was simply older and had more experience of humanity by then.

What struck me was just how hard he worked. Almost every waking moment was spent exploring. He would pick things up, turn them over, drop them, bang them, taste them, move them, try something again and again. Then eventually he would need to sleep.

When he woke up, the experiments started again. Because, looking back, experiments are exactly what they were.

What happens if I drop this?

Does it happen again?

What if I push it?

What does this feel like?

What happens if I put this inside that?

He wasn't trying to achieve an outcome someone else had decided upon. He was discovering how his world worked. And watching him reminded me of things I had done myself as a child. Washing up after Sunday lunch was one of my jobs. But I used to spend ages “playing” with the water. I'd fill bottles, mugs and different containers. How much of this would fit into that? How many small containers would fill a larger one? What happened when there was too much?

Nobody had given me an activity about volume and capacity. I was playing.

Except, of course, I was also learning about volume and capacity. I was learning how water behaved.

I was conducting experiments.

So what is play?

Perhaps we underestimate play because we associate the word with childhood.

Play sounds frivolous. Learning sounds purposeful. Experimentation sounds intelligent. Yet sometimes they describe exactly the same behaviour.

A child pouring water repeatedly between two containers may be playing, learning, exploring and experimenting simultaneously. The labels are ours, not theirs.

And perhaps that's worth thinking about when we talk about dementia. We are rightly very conscious of infantilisation. Someone living with dementia remains an adult, with an adult lifetime behind them. Giving someone childish materials, speaking to them as though they were a child or treating them as one because their cognitive abilities have changed can strip away dignity.

But does that mean play itself is childish? I don't think it does.

Curiosity isn't childish.

Exploration isn't childish.

Pleasure isn't childish.

Wanting to touch something interesting isn't childish.

Repeating something because the result is satisfying isn't childish.

Neither is discovering what happens when you do something differently.

Those are human things.

When does an activity become a test?

This is where I started wondering about another word we use all the time in dementia care: activity.

At Timeless Presents, we describe many of our own products as activities. Until now, that has seemed a perfectly sensible word. But I'm beginning to wonder what expectations it creates. An activity can imply that there is something you're supposed to do. There may be instructions, an intended outcome, a beginning and an end. Even when nobody intends it, there can be a quiet measure of success attached to it.

Did they complete it?

Could they do it?

Did they understand what they were supposed to do?

We don't necessarily impose those expectations on children's play. Give a small child some building blocks and they may build a tower. They may line them up. They may sort them. They may knock them together to hear the sound. They may put them in a saucepan. We don't usually conclude that they have failed to understand the blocks. We watch what they do with them.

Yet give someone living with dementia a puzzle and, if they don't assemble it, how easily might we conclude: They can't do puzzles anymore.

What if they pick up one piece and study the picture?

What if they arrange the pieces into groups?

What if they turn them over?

What if they simply enjoy handling them?

Has the interaction failed? Or have they simply used the object differently from the way we expected?

Two people trying to understand their worlds

There is something else I realise now about that period when Rory was tiny.

At one end of life I was watching a new human being putting enormous effort into learning how to navigate an unfamiliar world. At the other, I was watching my dad putting enormous effort into navigating a world that had become increasingly difficult for him to interpret.

I am not suggesting that someone with dementia becomes childlike. Dad was an adult man with an entire lifetime of experience, relationships and identity behind him.

But both observations taught me something about being human. We are constantly trying to make sense of the world available to us. Perhaps that drive doesn't stop because our cognitive abilities change. And perhaps sometimes, when someone living with dementia interacts with something in a way we didn't intend, we could resist the urge to measure what they are doing against what the object is for.

And I'm beginning to wonder whether the important distinction was ever really between toys and activities at all. Perhaps it is between providing something to be completed and providing something that can be explored.

One carries our expectations.

The other leaves room to explore.