I just saw a story on the NYTimes website about the most popular toys for preschoolers this holiday seasons. Turns out laptops, MP3 music players, and digital cameras are the hottest toys this year ... for 3-5 year olds.
Get a GRIP, people! Preschoolers need blocks and cars they have to push to go "vroom" with, and dolls and pretend kitchens and puzzles, and bouncy balls they can throw and chase across the yard.
To paraphrase from the article, one of the hottest toys this year is an exercise bicycle connected to a video game. According to a toy industry analyst there's been a "huge jump" in the last year in toys that involve looking at a screen.
I saw the bike/video game thing in a catalog and thought it was the dumbest thing I ever saw.
I'm not speaking out of turn here...I have two children (T1 and T2) and I can report with great authority that they would probably have a brief fascination with that thing, and then it would gather dust.
On the other hand, T2 is still creating the most amazing structures with the basic wood block set his grandparents gave him for Christmas five years ago. He builds detailed courses for his Hot Wheels cars to travel on with wooden shims we got at the lumber store. T1 colors and draws with plain old Crayons, and makes toy critters out of rocks and things she finds in the yard, and castoff packaging from things we get shipped to us.
I found a box of marbles in my storage shed the other night that I had brought home from my parents' house several years ago. At the time T1 and T2 were too young to play with small marbles (choking hazard) but now they are old enough to not do that, so I got on the floor and taught them how to play. T2 is toting them around like a Major Prize Gift from the Gods now.
My sisters recently brought my kids the "Tiddlywinks" game. Again...how basic is THAT? And they LOVE it. Ditto with dominoes, Crazy Eight card games and the kid version of Monopoly.
I'm on my righteously indignant parenting soapbox right now, but puhlllleeeaaaase....don't ENCOURAGE your children to spend any more time in front of a TV/Video than they already do!!!!
Oh, and here's an idea...how about taking them out on REAL bikes for a ride?
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5 comments:
Amen!!! I concur with every word you've written, Sis!
you've missed the point of christmas toys again, i'm afraid. it's not about simplicity, or education, or quality fun, it's about MONEY. yay!
when i was in england one of the girls was given a barbie "computer" for christmas and it was supposed to be educational, but the only thing i can honestly say it taught them was to be jealous and obsessive about the thing. we had to set up several guidelines about when and how they could use it, because it always caused fights with complete disappearance of the victorious child into a deep pink barbie hypnosis. i secretly wanted the device to come to an unhappy end and often plotted its demise. i think it eventually ran out of batteries and was given away.
T1 has that Barbie "laptop." She still uses it, but the sounds it makes are so annoying I too have plotted an untimely demise for it. It was a gift from her grandmother a year ago. T2 has a similar "Batman" version.
Interesting point....some parents say that these types of toys (and video games) prepare them to be electronics savvy when they get into school., and feel this gives them some sort of competitive edge, but with the little time that my own kids have spent playing kid games online (Sesame St., and Discovery channel sites have great games) they are still really good at figuring out how to use their classroom computers at school. As The Reenactor has noted they are already nearly as proficient as his mother at using them!
And yes, it's about the money.
Does T2 have any Lincoln Logs? Because when I was about 7,8,9 those were my absolute favorite. If he's into blocks, he'll love lincoln logs.
Let me know, perhaps I'll mail you a box.
T2 has a basic set...enough to build a small cabin..that The Reeanctor's cousin gave us. He plays with them quite a bit. I personally seem to be Lincoln Log challenged. I try to help him put them together and can't figure out how in the darn things go together to create a roofline.
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