Recently, I was discussing Christmas gifts for the Cornett younguns with a close female relative (who will remain nameless). She was telling me how smart my kids could be if only I would buy them a toy that lights up when you push a button. I disagreed, of course, much to her dismay. Why not get my daughter the battery run safari game that would teach her all fifty states? But she has a US map puzzle, I pointed out. A difference of approach, you see.
While poking around online about this issue, I found a wonderful press release from the Alliance for Childhood, which expresses my views on this quite well:
What these electronic toys will not encourage children to do is play. When children play, they take the lead themselves and generate their own creative activities to help them work through the issues, problems, or personal experiences that are most pressing in their own lives. The real magic wand for play is the child's own imagination, not expensive electronics.
"A good toy is 10 percent toy and 90 percent child," explains the Alliance"s Joan Almon. "It's the child's imagination that brings a good toy to life, not a battery or a chip embedded in it. Electronic toys and computer activities can easily overpower the child's own budding imagination. Simple toys are far more empowering, because it's so much easier to imagine turning them into one object after another."
A large cardboard box, for example, can be a cave, a boat, or a castle -- whatever the child chooses in the dramas she creates herself. Almon and other child advocates recommend simple, inexpensive toys over the latest high-tech (and high-priced) items in toy stores. They also recommend the all-time favorite gift for children: more time and personal attention from parents, grandparents, and the other important adults in children's lives.
The entire press release is well worth your time, especially as you plan to spend your cash on some little one somewhere. So instead of the latest robot, buy some of this instead.
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