Today's toys claim to teach your child everything from colors to animals, but is this really what children need? Or want for that matter. Pressing buttons doesn't trigger the creativity and imagination in a child that toys once did. When I was a child leap frog was a game played outside with other children, before childhood obesity was the new pandemic.
The most used items in my house are those resembling the ones I played with as a child. The pylon of 5 colorful rings, that you teach him or her to say. A ball, pots and a wooden spoon, wooden blocks, nope, no buttons on these either. The toy vehicles that make sounds and move on their own remain untouched, but my living room is scattered with dinky cars.So with all the rage and frenzy during holidays and birthdays to get the 'must have' toys, it seems a lot like it's the parents who really want these things, not the kids. Or maybe it's the new generation of pressure to be a parent to a trilingual 3 year old.
Do you suppose that these toys are the cause of a gap in parent to child relationships? Or that some parents might be relying too much on these talking toys to teach children words, letters, and numbers? Instead of old fashioned person to person playtime and learning.
What about Slinkies, finger painting and Play-Doh, or playing in the dirt?
After seeing what my child plays with regularly and which toys he discards after one hour, I started buying more classic looking toys which seem to be more durable, don't take batteries, and get way more play time.
Push popper anyone?
5 comments:
Well I have to say I agree with the amount of money parents re paying for toys. It's not worth it. My son is seven and would play with his game boy all day all night if I let him. I know not all parents have a time limit. What happen to playing outside.
You mentioned the leapfrog my son loves this. It has taught him things like the places in the world. He knows countries that I might not remember learning about in school.
I think christmas is a joke. It's not a birthday party for jesus. It's a party for parents to feel good about giving to their kids what they didn't have. I want to take christmas away from our family because we don't believe In religion but my kids will feel so left out. So instead of christmas being about what you get I want to help my kids give to the world. People who are less fortuante and maybe one or two nice toys.
I don't mean for this to sound offensive in anyway, you know me Amanda, but couldn't you just as easily get a globe and teach your son about places in the world while at the same time spending some quality time with him? I'm not saying to totally junk all the noisy toys out there either, believe me we have a few and Austin occasionally plays with them. But he more often repeats words I say to him than words a toy says.
Your kids are still very young. Under the age of two so they need all kinds of attention. It's good to teach your children to work on their own. Owen plays the leap pad from anywhere between ten minutes or an hour. There is not a time limit on it because it's teaching him to read. He's the top reader in the school. I've read to him since he was in my tummy I bought him the Leap Frog reading thing I think on his fifth birthday. He has almost out growen it though. The books usually only run to grade three.
Spending time with him is different now that he's a school kid. We could have a family day skating and see a friend from school and he'll say hi but I know the day is coming when he'll say bye mom, bye dad their's so and so.
Ohhhh I didn't mean leap frog books. I think those are great, because they do encourage kids to read on their own. Owen is 7, I was refering to babies and toddlers, like Lily. While I think that educational toys are ok, and would rather have educational ones than just plain noisy, I still think that kids toys should focus more on creativity and imagination.
Yeah I know what you mean. Marcie (she's such a girl!) would rather play with makeup brushes and tupperware!! She loves her plain-ole-nontalking dolls. Alot of the toys out there now are marketing scams, I think.
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