Are wooden toys going to disappear from the toy shelves soon? Are wooden building blocks and wooden trucks soon to become something you can only find in an antique shop or your grandmother’s attic? It happened to Erector Sets, one of the most classic toys you could ever hope to find. Many people who are engineers today developed that interest after they got their first Erector Set. But they are gone now, victims of the electronic revolution that seems to be sweeping the toy department. If it does not walk by itself, talk by itself and allow you to chat with somebody on the opposite side of the world it’s outta here. Will wooden toys suffer the same fate?
Classic wooden toys that operate on imagination alone are being discarded in favor of electronic and interactive toys as children become technologically savvy at a younger and younger age. But experts are beginning to see that, whereas these electronic toys are more enticing to children, much of the technology that’s added to the toys is really altering the basic ways that the children play. These new toys are actually limiting your child’s creativity and imagination processes. Kids now expect the toys to entertain them when they used to expect to entertain themselves with the toys.
While toy makers argue that they have to add electronics to their toys to stay up with technological changes and the demands of the consumer, Mitchel Resnick, a professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology Media Lab, says, “Technology can be used in many ways. Sometimes it can support new learning experiences and sometimes it can suppress them.”
Some experts say that children are becoming so familiar with electronics in their toys that they now just push a button and expect the toy to perform. Toys like talking dolls each have their own pre-programmed personality and can stop kids from developing their language skills their creativity and imagination. When children play with these talking toys all they are doing is repeating back what the toy says to them. They are not using their imagination to create a dialogue because they are waiting for the doll to tell them what to say next.
In essence, we are not teaching our children how to play games anymore, we’re merely entertaining them to keep them quiet. But in the process we’re stifling imagination and creativity. Kids are being given electronic toys at such an early age that when they get to elementary school they don’t even understand what Play-doh is because they’ve never seen it. It does not speak, it doesn’t walk and it does not show movies.
Experts recommend that we get our kids back to the fundamentals so they develop the creative skills they’ll need later in life. Electronic toys are fine within reason. However if your child doesn’t develop the basic cognitive skills he needs before he starts playing with these electronic toys, then he might be in serious trouble when he enters school. Classic wooden toys like building blocks and wooden cars and trucks and wooden pull and push toys help your child develop his imagination and creativity in a way that no electronic toy ever will.
Want to find out more about wood toys, then visit Noah Meckler’s site on how to choose the best educational wooden toys for your needs.
