Why Your Child Loves the Box More Than the Toy

Most parents have seen some version of the following scene: You buy your child a new toy (or a well-meaning family member). Maybe it lights up, maybe it sings. Or maybe it came with a horrifying number of twist ties and plastic tabs holding it hostage inside the packaging.

And then, ten minutes later, your child is sitting inside the cardboard box. They are not beside it or near it - they are inside it (‘if I fit, I sit’ is a commonly heard phrase in my household).

The toy is then ignored, and the box has become a house, a rocket ship, a grocery store, a dog bed, a castle, or even a bathtub where they take their cups of water and pretend they’re at the spa (or that’s just my kids…).

I’ve seen some parents or grandparents become offended (to be fair, if you just spent $60 on the toy, the box can feel like a personal attack), but it actually makes developmental sense. Children are not choosing the box because they are ungrateful or don’t like the toy, but they are often choosing the box because it gives them more room to think and use their imagination.

A highly designed toy usually comes with a script: Push this button. Hear this song. Put this figure here. Watch this thing happen. And then…that’s it. That’s all it can do.

But a box! Oh man…this box doesn’t come with a script and that’s the whole point. The box asks the child to imagine, plan, transform, negotiate, revise, and invent.

So let’s look deeper into why this happens with the box (or any other open-ended toy like magnetic tiles, Lincoln Logs, painters tape [yes, really…try it!], sensory tables, etc.).

Open-ended play: Play without one fixed outcome or correct way to use the material.

Loose parts: Materials that children can move, combine, redesign, take apart, and use in many different ways.

Symbolic play: Play where one object stands in for something else, like when a box becomes a spaceship or a stick becomes a magic wand.

The idea that children benefit from flexible, changeable materials is not new. In 1971, architect Simon Nicholson introduced what became known as the “theory of loose parts.” His basic argument was that environments become more creative when children have access to materials they can manipulate, combine, and transform.

This is why a pile of boxes, fabric scraps, sticks, blocks, tape, cushions, salad spinners (yes - just trust me), or recycled containers can sometimes hold a child’s attention longer than a toy designed to “do” something.

Open-ended materials give children more decisions to make. Some examples of these decisions:

• What is this?

• What could it become?

• How do I make it stand up?

• What happens if I turn it upside down?

• Can my brother fit in here too?

• What if this is the door and that is the steering wheel?

This fits with what Zosh et al. (2017) describe as playful learning. Their review argues that children learn especially well when experiences are active, engaging, meaningful, socially interactive, iterative, and joyful. Open-ended materials often create opportunities for exactly these kinds of experiences because children have to decide what the object is, what it can become, and how it will be used.

It also connects with research on pretend play. Lillard et al. (2013) note that pretend play requires children to mentally represent one thing as something else: a cardboard box becomes a spaceship, a stick becomes a fishing pole, or a blanket becomes a superhero cape. When children turn a box into a spaceship (or any number of things), they are doing far more than pretending. They are practicing the ability to represent one thing as another—a skill that shows up throughout cognitive development.

This may help explain why open-ended materials such as blocks, dolls, animal figures, dress-up clothes, art supplies, cardboard boxes, blankets, and loose construction materials often support longer and more varied play. Nicholson’s (1971) theory of loose parts argued that children’s creativity is supported by materials that can be moved, combined, redesigned, taken apart, and used in multiple ways. In other words, these materials require children to contribute their own ideas, plans, and narratives rather than simply responding to predetermined features built into the toy.

There is also research suggesting that the type of toy matters for parent-child interaction. For example, Sosa (2016) observed parent-infant play and found that electronic toys were associated with fewer adult words, fewer conversational turns, and fewer child vocalizations than traditional toys and books.

The issue is not that electronic toys are harmful or that parents should immediately throw them away. Rather, findings like these suggest that when a toy takes over more of the interaction, there may be fewer opportunities for the back-and-forth conversations that support early learning and development.

A toy that talks can sometimes crowd out conversation. A toy that has one intended use can narrow the range of possibilities. A toy that performs can place the child in the role of audience rather than creator.

By contrast, open-ended materials often require children to generate ideas, tell stories, solve problems, and negotiate meaning. The play itself depends less on what the toy does and more on what the child brings to it.

That does not mean every toy needs to be wooden, beige, Montessori-adjacent, or aesthetically pleasing to adults on Instagram. Children can play creatively with branded toys, plastic toys, loud toys, and character toys too. Development is not that fragile.

But the broader principle still holds: the more a toy does on its own, the less the child may need to contribute to the play. The less a toy dictates, the more opportunities there may be for the child to imagine, create, adapt, and invent.

Children See More Than Just a Toy

A study by Mertala et al. (2016) is useful here, even though it was not designed to answer the “box versus toy” question directly. The researchers interviewed 6- to 8-year-old children about their toy preferences and found that children’s reasons for wanting toys extended beyond the objects themselves. Children described toys in terms of their functional value, social value, personal value, and material value. In other words, children were not simply evaluating toys based on what they were. They were thinking about what they could do with them, who they might play with, and how those toys connected to their interests and experiences.

That is an important reminder: Children are not passive consumers of toys. They actively interpret them and assign meaning to them.

A cardboard box may look like trash to an adult. To a child, however, it can have enormous play value. It can become a fort, a spaceship, a stage, a hiding place, a race car, a puppet theater, or whatever else the child’s imagination requires. The box is not better because it is cheaper, but because it is more flexible.

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Modern childhood is full of products that promise developmental benefits. We have toys that promise to teach letters, numbers, support STEM, and toys that claim to build creativity, executive functioning, emotional intelligence, or even “brain development.” Many of these toys can absolutely support learning, but parents are often sold the idea that the more a toy teaches, the more valuable it is. Development is rarely that simple though.

Children do not learn only from toys that advertise educational benefits. They also learn by building, pretending, experimenting, negotiating, storytelling, problem-solving, and creating their own ideas.

This is one reason so many educators and child development experts describe play as learning. For young children, play is not separate from development—it is one of the primary ways development happens.

It is also why boredom is not always a problem to solve immediately. When children are given time, space, and a few flexible materials, boredom can become the starting point for invention.

Not always, of course. Sometimes boredom becomes whining. Sometimes the box becomes a weapon. Sometimes the “creative project” becomes a living room full of marker, tape, and regret. But sometimes boredom becomes a fort, or a spaceship, or a restaurant, or an afternoon spent creating something no toy manufacturer could have predicted.

The larger lesson is that children do not always need adults—or toys—to provide the entire experience. Sometimes they need room to help create it.

Your child loves the box because the box (or other open-ended toy) does not tell them what it is. They get to decide. And that deciding — the pretending, building, revising, narrating, negotiating, and problem-solving — is the work of play.

The best toys often do less, not because children need less stimulation, but because they need more room to create it themselves.

• Children are not being ungrateful when they prefer the box. They may simply be choosing the object with more possibilities.

• Open-ended materials support imagination because they do not have one fixed use.

• Simple toys often invite more language, social interaction, problem-solving, and symbolic play than toys that entertain the child automatically.

• You do not need to buy a whole new category of “open-ended toys.” Boxes, blankets, sticks, tape, blocks, pillows, paper towel tubes, and fabric scraps count.

• Electronic and highly structured toys are not automatically harmful, but they can narrow play if they do too much of the work.

• A good question to ask is not “What does this toy teach?” but “What does this toy leave for my child to do?”

Lillard, A. S., Lerner, M. D., Hopkins, E. J., Dore, R. A., Smith, E. C., & Palmquist, C. M. (2013). The impact of pretend play on children’s development: A review of the evidence. Psychological Bulletin, 139(1), 1-34.

Mertala, P., Karikoski, H., Tähtinen, L., & Sarenius, V.-M. (2016). The value of toys: 6–8-year-old children’s toy preferences and the functional analysis of popular toys. International Journal of Play, 5 (1), 11-27.

Nicholson, S. (1971). How not to cheat children – The theory of loose parts. Landscape Architecture, 62, 30-34.

Sosa, A. V. (2016). Association of the type of toy used during play with the quantity and quality of parent-infant communication. JAMA Pediatrics, 170(2), 132–137.

Zosh, J. M., Hopkins, E. J., Jensen, H., Liu, C., Neale, D., Hirsh-Pasek, K., Solis, S. L., & Whitebread, D. (2017). Learning through play: A review of the evidence. The LEGO Foundation.