Nothing says βmodern parentingβ like watching your seven-year-oldβs heart break over an exploded squishy full of radioactive goo. I finally caved and bought my daughter a βdumpling squishyβ from the $2 shop. You know, the viral fidget toys keeping Border Force busy. (Note: theyβre not $2. Small ones are $8. Large ones are obscenely pushing $45 and are kept behind the counter like ciggies.)
Her joy was boundless: it was like Taylor Swift had dropped by on Christmas morning with a bunny. After an hour of my daughterβs ecstatic kneading, the thing burst while we were in the car. Her face crumpled into unbearable anguish as I briefly debated calling the fire brigade to handle the toxic spill while yelling at her not to touch anything.
I drove to the nearest $2 shop to buy another one because I couldnβt handle her Shakespearean-level despair, even if weβd just narrowly avoided a crash. βWhy do you like them so much?β I asked her as we left the $2 shop. βIt helps me regulate,β she said.
My jaw dropped. I have battled anxiety for most of my adult life, so Iβm hardly anti-coping mechanisms. My cupboard is filled with enough βcalmβ herbal teas and supplements to subdue an entire carriage of Sydney commuters in peak hour. Some help; others are just placebos in nice packaging. What I never expected was to see βmanaging anxietyβ turn into a consumerist boom for kids, to the point where even kids who donβt have anxiety, like my daughter, are now fluent in therapy-speak. Toys arenβt just toys any more; theyβre βcoping mechanismsβ that help them βregulateβ.
Fidget toys have become a ubiquitous sight in Australian classrooms. What started as tools for a small minority of kids with diagnosed needs became a near-universal must-have. And why wouldnβt they, when these shiny, glittering toys are spreading like a super-cute virus through schools? Iβm certain that if her fellow students started bringing in emotional support carrots, my daughter would develop a clinical need for one by recess.
One Reddit user in a forum for Australian teachers described being sick of fidget toys and attempted to teach year 2 students to βtwiddle their thumbsβ. A worrying number couldnβt do it, which is funny in a bleak sort of way. The great undiagnosed of us got through the old-school ways: biting nails down to the bed, chewing on hair and twiddling our thumbs. Not always hygienic, but at least we werenβt exposed to goo that could be classified as a chemical weapon.
Letβs be honest: a toy is a toy. Iβm no occupational therapist, but when a dumpling squishy becomes a tool to βregulateβ, even in the eyes of kids who donβt need it, we are medicalising boredom. This is concept creep at its finest and most sinister, with an added price tag.
In an age of soaring mental health labels, everyone is hunting for a cause: phones, parenting, pandemics. What gets spoken about less is the possibility that we are manufacturing the problem as we name it. When kids borrow the language that their ordinary childhood restlessness is βdysregulationβ β to be solved with a shiny new toy β of course theyβll self-diagnose.
There are very real conditions that are now being recognised and treated more than they once were, which is great. But we should be worried when our neurotypical kids start to self-identify just to fit in. Weβll have a generation of children who canβt tell the difference between a fad and a diagnosis, and an industry trying to sell them both.
At least weβre keeping Border Force busy. Someone has to protect Australia from this overpriced gunk.
Cherie Gilmour is a freelance writer.