Letter from America - Rick Derr

After 20 years working at A.C. Nielsen/D&B Research Company, Rick opened the first Learning Express Toys franchise in the Chicago area in 1996, and then became a sub-franchiser, opening nine more stores. Although leaving the corporate environment behind, he has combined his expertise in data and numbers with a passion for the toy retail space. This month Rick looks at how the toy industry can get involved in the mental health of children and teens.

The toy industry and youth mental health –get involved!

There is a documented mental health crisis in the US among children and teens. In October of 2021, the American Academy of Pediatrics and the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry declared a national state of emergency in children’s mental health. In these organisations’ combined 125 years of existence, this has never happened before.

I want to be involved and passionately believe the toy industry should be involved. I came to this conclusion after listening to a podcast earlier this year, which I would recommend everyone to listen to, you can find it at www. thetoycoach.com/podcast/ (mesh-toys-for-mental-emotional-and-social-healthwith-rachele-harmuth).

In the summer of 2022, Rachele Harmuth, head of ThinkFun, Ravensburger North America, and Deborah Gilboa, MD, clinical associate professor, University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine, got to work. Their work has opened my eyes to two things our youth need – namely Comfort in the Moment and MESH (Mental, Emotional and Social Health) skills.

The need for Comfort in the Moment has seen the fidget, plush and sensory toy markets explode since Covid-19. My sales have never been higher on these categories and, while we see it levelling out, it still creates big dollar volume as children gravitate towards these feelgood items. But what caught my attention even more was that kids also need methods to develop MESH (Mental, Emotional and Social Health) skills to protect them from the risky behaviors and self-harm that are too often the result of their mental distress.

These skills include:

• Problem solving

• Perseverance

• Adaptation

• Conflict resolution

• Self-regulation

• Self-advocacy

• Cognitive skills

• Communication strategies

Every stakeholder in the toy industry - including inventors, manufacturers, retailers and wholesalers - has a crucial role to play in protecting the mental health of children through the development of MESH skills. Parents are crying out for help, with 71% believing the pandemic has taken a toll on their child’s mental health, and 67% say they wish they’d been more vigilant about their child’s mental health from the beginning.

Parents and Educators need games and toys that:

• Focus on problem solving and perseverance

• Encourage storytelling

• Present new or increasing challenges over the duration of play

• Attract children and their adults

These MESH skills, when put into practice, teach children how to identify and overcome obstacles. They give them the tools to explain what they’re experiencing – both to themselves and to others – and, most importantly to ask for help when stuck.Parents used to be focused on academic performance but post pandemic this has shifted dramatically to mental health, and now parents want help protecting their kids.

Does play offer the solution? Putting toys and games that build MESH skills into the hands of parents will provide tools for them to teach these valuable skills. These tools will support parents’ strategies and ideas to teach them openly and to work with children.

Our industry is in a prime position to impact the mental health of kids, and it’s vital that we do so.

We can all start with these 5 steps:

• Understand mental health obstacles children and adults face.

• Show empathy and attention to these concerns in our outreach to parents, adults and educators.

• Design toys and games that emphasize MESH skill building.

• Demonstrate and communicate the MESH value of our toys and games.

• Create changes at the individual, family, school and community levels to offer more opportunities to children for play.

This is a global toy industry initiative, but we all owe a huge debt of thanks to Ravensburger for allowing Rachele Harmuth and Dr. G (as she is known) the ability to front and promote this work. To learn more, visit MESHhelps.org. There are retailer and manufacturer packs available now to help businesses, teams and staff members begin this education and support children and parents.

At Learning Express, I have made index cards available and our local retail staff will be trained and educated to help families deal with mental health issues. This is not only the right thing to do but good for business as well. I would recommend all toy stores, not just in the US but all around the world, to join us this year in this activity. I’m sure we will all look back and say we‘re glad we did.

Richard can be reached on LinkedIn or by email at LE45@sbcglobal.net.