How To Raise A Happy Genius

What Is It?

#ToyLikeMe is a website dedicated to providing toys which represent the full diversity of humankind, and particularly toys that represent people with a disability or difference. It started life as a campaign to encourage the global toy industry to provide such toys, but has now branched out into a website to help parents find toys that provide positive representations of disabilities and differences.

Why Is It Useful?

Raising a child who is different can be difficult enough without society adding pressure on children to look a certain way, or to conform to specific stereotypes and/or expectations. These expectations can leave children who are different feeling isolated and alone. Seeing toys that represent people like themselves helps such children realise that they are not alone and that they are simply part of the glorious diversity that is humankind. It also provides a positive representation of the full range of humanity, and so encourages all children, whether different or not, to realise that such differences are completely normal and are part of what makes us all human.

Who Is Behind It?

#ToyLikeMe was established in April 2015 by Rebecca Atkinson, a journalist and creative consultant, after she noticed a lack of positive representation of disability in toys. It has now developed into a creative collective who aim to celebrate disability in toys and call on the global toy industry to positively represent 150 million children with disabilities and differences worldwide.

Five Pages Worth Checking Out On This Website:

To help you get an understanding of the type of information provided by #ToyLikeMe, here are links to five pages which represent its main aims:

1. Why representation matters.
2. Our story.
3. Toys: Stuff yer toy box full of disability delights!
4. Makeovers: The products of our dreams.
5. The Cochlear Implant Bear.

About The Author: This post was written by Colin Drysdale, the creator of How To Raise A Happy Genius.