The thing about recommended age ranges for toys is that… for many toys, it’s just a suggestion. Your twelve year old may still love the toys he had when he was six. Her six-year-old son might be ready for something as complex as a Haynes internal combustion engine toy, and for the most part, he’s fine. You know your child better than anyone; buy them something they will enjoy.

However, when toys are recommended for a certain age range due to a safety issue, you’ll want to exercise your own common sense and consider the question of why that toy is recommended for that age group.

Where many of these age groups are somewhat subjective, such as “kids around the age of twelve should enjoy this toy more (but who knows, your eight-year-old might love it!),” safety concerns they focus on more practical measures than like or dislike.

For example, an obvious one is the choking hazard. A young child just has a habit of chewing on things as he develops his teeth, and they just have smaller windpipes than older children. If a teddy bear has button eyes and is considered a choking hazard to your three-year-old, it’s not just Dixie whistling. Those little button eyes are really a choking hazard for your three year old, even if that three year old reads college level, that doesn’t change the fact that buttons and three year olds don’t mix.

Pointy, heavy, or potentially damaging toys are another problem. A toy like, say, a Meccano kit, which is made from real sheet metal, can be a great choice for a pre-teen who is old enough to know how to handle it responsibly, but we all know that a younger child they’re going to chew on it, they’ll have a hard time carrying it, and they might drop it on their toe, or trip and prick themselves.

This isn’t because your three-year-old is a real dummy or something silly, it’s simply that a child’s motor skills haven’t yet developed to the point where they can be trusted to carry potentially harmful items such as certain electronic learning toys.

Again, this has nothing to do with things like mental development and your child’s personal taste in toys. Heck, some four-year-olds love all those scary dragons and dinosaurs and other nocturnal creatures designed more specifically for a pre-teen audience. It is not a question of a child not being smart enough to figure something out, but simply a question of physical development.

So while we recommend that you consider the age recommendations as just that, recommendations, we ask that you consider the age requirements as gospel itself. As bright, imaginative and mature as your toddler may be, he may enjoy listening to Mozart and quoting the famous surrealist philosopher Albert Camus, but a young child is simply not ready yet for the potential dangers of certain toys, or at least, not at all. point of view of physical development and safety.