Our Director, Sharon, came across an article this week published by wired.com and authored by Jonathon Liu about the '5 Best Toys of All Time'. It is the holiday season so I took some time to think about it; after all I have two preteen children and good amount of experience buying toys. With all the literature lately about getting back to the basics, I had a hunch the list would be surprisingly simple: balls, chalk, crayons, blocks and maybe play dough. All wrong, but not far off! You can read the article for yourselves to discover his actual list at http://www.wired.com/geekdad/2011/01/the-5-best-toys-of-all-time/all/1.
It got me thinking, however, about gifts and what we buy our children these days. Furthermore, I wonder about the general expectation associated with owning new technologies. Does an eight-year-old child really need a telephone? Does a ten-year-old need the latest iTouch version when he has only owned the old one for eight months? Do I need a new phone because my old phone doesn’t have a flash? Oh, the perils of marketing! Are we complicating things for ourselves? For younger children we should ask ourselves, can an eight-year-old have as much fun with a ball of string as with an iTouch? Given a choice between a dirt pile and a stack of video games, what would a six-year-old choose these days? And, if he chose the dirt pile, does that affect his preparedness for their future? I raise these questions not to answer them, but rather to arouse thought as we all venture out and brave the holiday shopping madness! We, as educators, talk about the importance of imaginative play, yet we encourage the brain drain with some of these new technologies. I guess I’m asking you, as parents, where, when and how do we draw the line?
Happy Holidays!
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