A plushie (often a favorite) who also suffers from the same (or similar) issue creates that form of empathy/connection children require.
We got some special toys as well, for example a doll with a heartbeat which supposedly helps kids with autism (both parents in our household got the diagnosis). I don't think it works for our oldest, and for our youngest jury's out on it (he's not even 1 year old).
Suffice to say I find this a beautiful project. Thank you so much for linking to it, submitter!
These toys-that-make-feelgood-news are not about kids but adults playing politics (that they are compassionate unlike the other tribe).
Notwithstanding the tone of the article being "feel-good" I really don't know how you make the jump you made here - lots of research supports the idea that representation matters.
Sure kids will happily play with rocks and cardboard tubes, but if they are playing with dolls they will absolutely notice if they are none of the options are much like themselves. It's hardly a big conceptual jump to see how a kid in a wheelchair would like to have a doll/action figure/whatever also with a wheelchair.
Who can watch that and say rocks and sticks would be just as good?
Economics has no objective truth, as evidenced by its inability as a whole to make accurate predictions. Politics has no objective truth, because we need to understand people's motivations which are often hidden from themselves.
If you see this kind of headline and get upset because of the editorializing, I suspect you should only read about physics and math. At least until you start to see the subjectivity in those fields as well.
We cannot escape our biases. We cannot communicate objectively - the decisions of what to talk about, how we express it, and how much context to include - those all fly against objectivity.
It took me a while to accept that I'm not a logical robot and to embrace the parts of humanity that I previously found distasteful because it couldn't be cleanly reduced to a binary.
Further, why not consider that "Man makes toys" is just a manipulative form of "Dad makes teddies"? Sure that primes us just as much as "Dad makes teddies", just in the other direction, no?
EDIT: Rereading this it sounds like I'm coming at you, or the OP, but I'm not :) Just thinking out loud in response to your comment!
More teddies !
Example 1: when my daughter was 2 she got a fishbone stuck in her mouth. I gave her lots of bread and water so that something would force the small bone to go down. After 5 minutes the issue was resolved and she immediately jumped to her teddy bear and started playing "you have a bone teddy, you need bread, take this, take that". The first plays were urgent and quite serious and the teddy was always "cured" quickly. But later through the following days as she played the same idea she started to improvise. Teddy, in her hands, would cough and cough - I would offer him things for 10 minutes and more and nothing would help him. And she would laugh at this. After these plays fish bones in her mind were no longer serious.
Example 2: when she was 3 we tried to adapt her to a kindergarten. After the first day when she was home she picked up her toy cars and started playing. Some of the cars were teachers, others were children, one was me, another one was her, and one small car was a smaller child that cried all the time. And we played the routine where I came to the kindergarten with her, stayed for a bit, and then went to work. At the moment the "dad" car went to work she would physically tense up and become silent, as if it was really happening. But those moments became easier once she learned more details about what to expect during the typical day in the kindergarten and that later the "dad" car always comes back to take her home. Seems like this experience was helpful as, despite being somewhat shy, she never cried during her adaptation period.