Why Do Children Love Toy Kitchens?

I was wandering around the local charity shops at the weekend and noticed a second hand pink toy kitchen that took my fancy. I thought my young children would love to play with it and promptly purchased it. Afterwards I did realise that impulse buying does lead to some difficulties, the largest issue being getting the play kitchen home. The question is though, why do children love toy kitchens?



They love to play act and pretend that they are mummy or daddy. They really do love to get their tea sets out and use their toy kitchen to provide a "cup of tea" for whoever will take one. I could not possibly count how many times my little daughter has offered me a cup of tea from her pink tea set over the last week or so. My son isn’t so enamoured with the "cup of tea" game but he loves playing with the plastic tea spoons and little bowls – he clearly prefers eating to drinking.



Toy kitchens not only allow children to pretend to be like their parents though, they also provide little toddlers with one of their all time favourite toys – a box with a door that they can put things in and take them out. So my two year old daughter likes to put the tea set in the cooker and close the door and then of course, open the door and take it all out again. My son likes a similar game, but he does prefer to store his cars in there – and who am I to stop him.



The problem, of course, with a children's toy kitchen is it does take up a bit of room. You could look at this from a positive point of view though. Once I got my kitchen home last weekend, I filled 2 bin bags full of old toys and returned these to the charity shops so that they could continue their adventure with other little children.