Kara Alaimo, an assistant professor of public relations at Hofstra University, is the author of "Pitch, Tweet, or Engage on the Street: How to Practice Global Public Relations and Strategic Communication." She was a spokeswoman for international affairs in the Treasury Department during the Obama administration. Follow her on Twitter @karaalaimo. The opinions expressed in this commentary are solely those of the author.

(CNN) Like many people who grew up in the 1980s, I have happy memories of going to Toys R Us on special occasions to pick out toys. As a teenager, I got my ears pierced at Claire's. And the ultimate treat every year around the holidays was a trip to the toy store FAO Schwartz on Fifth Avenue in New York City.

Kara Alaimo

Now, Toys R Us may shutter its stores this week. Claire's is reportedly about to file for bankruptcy. In 2015, Toys R Us closed the flagship FAO Schwartz store on Fifth Avenue where Tom Hanks famously danced on a huge piano in the 1988 movie "Big."

It's easy to get nostalgic about these stores and to feel their closings as a loss. It's also worrisome to think that, instead of taking their kids to a store to play together, parents may order their toys online -- or, even worse, hand over electronic devices so kids can do so on their own. But there's a silver lining here: parents can use the time they would have spent shopping to do healthier activities with their families.

Teaching children that happiness comes from shopping was never the best lesson anyway. In fact, researchers have found that the commercialization of childhood causes problems including obesity, violence, family stress, sexualization, and early use of drugs and alcohol.

And, while toys can certainly help children learn, having too many of them can actually be detrimental to a kid's development. A study published recently in the journal Infant Behavior and Development found that toddlers were more creative and played for longer amounts of time when they were given fewer toys.

Read More