I've started a habit of sitting down with my son and taking them apart, screw by screw, piece by piece. He loves tools so he's into it 100%. The louder, brighter, and more annoying the y are, the more likely that they don't make it back together.
I used to take apart electronics in my house all the time, watching my dad and learning how to repair TV,toasters, VCRs etc. I was too young to remember how much damage or good I caused. These days I cannot concentrate on a lot of things, but repairing things is not one of them.
i used to buy second hand VCRs in the thrift store(or something like that) nearby to clean the heads. It took a while to understand than by cleaning them the way I did I would damage them irreparably.
VCR heads are incredibly delicate. They are essentially coils of extremely thin wire held together with a little bit of resin around a tiny mu-metal core. Touch them from the wrong angle and they're already gone.
My dad used to bring home broken desktop computers from work that were being thrown out. I would spend hours taking them apart, it was so much fun for me.
That's absolutely brilliant and I'm going to steal that idea when I'll have kids.
BTW., I just shared it with my cow-orkers, and the first reaction was: <<And so one day, you buy yourself a $1200 drone, then come home after work and see your kid smiling and saying "daddy, daddy! look, I took it apart all by myself!"...>> ;).
That was the most awesome part when I was a kid, I remember the first time I played with the electronic components of an old toy, I remember being amazed about how a small switch worked the same way with a small led and with an electric motor, I was amazed about how every part could work independent from the whole toy, it was a really big discovery for me.
This is genius! I know exactly what I'm getting my daughter for Christmas now! Thank you so much. You have just changed my entire life for the better :)
-edit- I just re-read your comment and the (great-)grandparent, and embarrassingly, just got the joke which I think you were making from some of the ambiguity of the original phrasing. That said, I'm leaving the rest of my original comment, as I think it's a point worth making. -edit-
No, don't.
If he desconstructs his favorite electronic toy and isn't able to get it working again, that's an opportunity for a lesson on how to take things apart without causing (more) damage, how cheaply and non-repairably many things are built (and the value of good design), how anything is repairable if you're cussed and resourceful enough (and when not to be), or any number of other lessons, limited only by your imagination.
Honestly, I just tell those relatives, “Thanks for the thought and lovely gift. In case you weren’t aware, we don’t allow battery operated toys in the house, so we’ll gladly let you keep [CHILD_NAME]’s toy at your house and when we come visit, they’ll be happy to play with it there.”
It might not be exactly this, but we have spent over a decade training our relatives, and after 6 children, we only get clothes (win!), wooden toys (win!), and board-games/puzzles (win!).
Otherwise, start asking for gift receipts or find out where they shopped so you can, “find something similar”...
I do not have any research. My personal observation and belief is:
A young child (0 to ~3 years) does not understand electronics. The input output response from a battery device cannot be easily guessed from only physical examination, thus it is not a good toy to develop a mental model.
I would much rather my child (at a very early age), form the basic mental models of the physical world so that she can predict how the world will react around her. Throwing a ball, banging a percussive instrument, stacking blocks. These all help form physical models of the world.
What solidified this belief for me was watching my ~11 month old frantically pushing the button on a battery operated rocking horse she had received as a present from her aunt. My child could not understand why the horse had made noise before, but (once I took the batteries out) did not make noise. After seeing that, I realized that we needed to make things simpler before we made them more complex.
> A young child (0 to ~3 years) does not understand electronics.
On the other hand, my 2 year old niece can easily take an iPad, unlock it, swipe through the pages and folders, find YouTube, and watch videos. And in an ever-increasing electronics-driven world, I don't think it's bad to learn some of those skills at that age. (Though her screentime is limited and she also plays with wooden toys etc.)
Ofcourse explaining a battery or 'the internet' would be too complex at that age, but apparently the 'input output response from a battery device can be easily guessed'.
I agree that certain toys can be age-appropriate while others are not. But a blanket ban on all electronic toys seems unjustified by this reasoning. (Parent said they have 6 children, it's likely that at least one or two of them would be able to appreciate battery operated toys.
I see comments like this all the time and it bothers me. When someone disagrees with something online, all of a sudden their bar for acceptance of the idea is peer-reviewed scientific research.
Tell me, where do you draw the line in your personal life for needing scientific evidence before making a choice? Surely you did not have scientific evidence for every single decision you've made.
I disagree. The comment looked like an honest question. Nothing should be taken at face value, especially these days when we are also being bombarded with platitudes about breast feeding and organic produce. As a new dad, I’m inclined to believe it, but I would still want to know if it was just the fad feeling of the day or if there was any actual science behind it (if there wasn’t any science behind it, that wouldn’t discredit the idea as these things are difficult to test, though it is definitely master or PhD degree worthy).
Then it's kind of a non-sequitur of a question. If it weren't, it would be either assuming that the parent commenter uses scientific research behind all of their parenting decisions, or would be implying that the parent is making ignorant choices on parenting.
It would be a non sequitor if they were trying to invalidate some kind of conclusion, there is actually none of that there. Quite frankly, people have read way too far into a simple question, inferring that it has nefarious intent, when none of that actually exists in the words written.
There are millions of n=1 studies across the globe. Most of the ones I’m familiar with reached a similar conclusion, but YMMV.
That’s the thing about parenting: you will have to make thousands and thousand of decisions without the benefit of rigorous peer-reviewed studies. You can’t wait for the science, because your kids are growing up now.
There are also millions of n=1 studies across the globe, in which parents did the opposite and kids turned out fine anyway.
It's true you can't wait for science. But it's important to realize when something is mostly an arbitrary choice. The anti-tech sentiment that's popular in parenting these days is exactly that - an arbitrary choice without solid foundations.
Perhaps there is a sort of knee-jerk retro-hippie back-to-the-basics trend happening nowadays. But the choice to limit children's exposure to electronic gadgets really isn't arbitrary anywhere I've seen it.
It's more typically reasoned, even painstakingly thought-out choice. One made based on insufficient information, yes, but also with limited time to make the decision.
For example, it is obvious to me from direct observation of my own kids that a box of polished wooden blocks leads to higher-quality play than any of the electronic mainstream crap that they've gotten as gifts: the creative process of building, non-predetermined outcomes, some thinking required, trial-and-error is rewarded, obvious self-satisfaction (and alternatively, frustration), etc.
Likewise, I could provide a litany of reasons why I think spending 30 minutes with a paper coloring or drawing book is an unambiguously better activity for my kids than an unrestricted iPad (which == YouTube, nearly 100% of the time).
An iPad locked to one of the drawing programs — that's pretty different. Once they've mastered crayons and pens on paper, I'll let them do that pretty much as long as they want to.
These decisions might not all have "solid foundations" — perhaps I'm wrong in some of my assumptions. But they also aren't "arbitrary". There is reasoning behind them, even if the reasoning may not be totally correct, and the data is necessarily incomplete.
There may not be any evidence that this policy is beneficial for the kids, but the accompanying sense of smug self-satisfaction is probably very enjoyable for the parents.
Is that something like the sense of smug satisfaction that people who don’t have any children get from making condescending comments on Internet forums about parenting decisions made by people who do?
Outsmugging the smug surely does not count as substantive discussion so can we please just not go there?
If it helps we can argue that it breaks the "Please respond to the strongest plausible interpretation of what someone says, not a weaker one that's easier to criticize" guideline.
I do this. I also like to throw in that my child only eats organic products, that have not been fried, that are also free of added salt and sugar. We also use cloth diapers, which I like to mention.
My wife and I agree on these things and think it best for our child. Our relatives and cousins look at us like we are from another planet LOL!
When our first kid was born, we just told everyone, "Toys that take batteries will have the batteries taken out. If taking the batteries out defeats the purpose of the toy, we will instead take it straight to Goodwill."
We had two instances of people giving him an electronic toy anyway. Both happened before he had really developed object permanence, so he didn't even notice when that Christmas gift was gone on December 26. The giver (both were from the same person) remembered, though, and it hasn't been a problem since.
She probably still thinks we're jerks, but most people with non-adult kids reacted positively and even said they wished they had thought to do the same thing.
Obvs the whole "before they develop object permanence" thing means this probably doesn't work if you don't start before or soon after your first child's birth.
I have opposite approach. I am happy to buy electronic toys and anything else moving. Mostly because I liked them when I was a child and remember strongly wishing a remote control car or ship or transformer (cause you could change their shape, i did not care one bit about the movie). Dunno why I wanted them so much, but no one would buy that to me cause I was a girl and it would be inappropriate.
My kids had remote controlled car before they were able to push buttons. For that reason.
I don't mind them, really. Kids like them, my kids like noisy things in general. So if they are not expensive I don't treat them differently then anything else they might like. On some level, I find them cool too, obviously not as much as children.
I honestly dont understand hate some people have against those things. Blinking and sounding toys have same future as old school toys - few chosen become favorite and stuck in bed, the rest forgotten in drawer or box relatively soon. No reason to fear them.
I feel for you. My wife and I have twins, a boy and a girl, and we try very hard not to gender their toys (or games).
But it’s hard when it comes to birthdays or Xmas gifts from others. My sister in law offered for their last birthday a playmobil police car to my son and a Frozen pearls craft set to my daughter.
At the end, both my kids played with the car and made bracelets with pearl. But, seriously...
My daughter did the same when she was near car. And no one even role modeled that in front of her as they tend to do with boys. (People tended not to want to play with car with her even if she took that to them. It seemed like people feel bad/confused about playing with gender inappropriate toy. ).
Older then six months, six months old are not bringing toys to people due to lack of ability to crawl effectively.
I also remember what 6 months old are like. If their actions are proof of universal anything to you, then it is your own bias. They don't play pretend knowingly yet, they only mimic a bit. Nor are cosistent.
But interesting is that whenever child or me does or wish something gender noncomforming, like almost always, someone feels the need to explain that someone else is gender conforming.
I still love remote control cars to this day. I was so excited when I pulled apart my first motor. I had no idea how magnetism or any of it worked. I just knew, you connect the wires and it spins. So much fun from a simple motor.
On the other side of this, I'm glad my parents didn't listen to advice not to let me have a computer growing up, or I might be in a different career. The people who build the technology of tomorrow will be better than us at it, because they've been exposed to the technology of today, and internalized it, from an earlier age.
I second that strongly. My career choice is a direct consequence of having lots of unsupervised time with computers since ~9 y.o. I quickly saturated myself with available games and started to tinker with them, first to extract sounds and modify saves - then I started dreaming up my own perfect games and grew the desire to make them, which lead me to learn programming...
That said, I am afraid the Internet is a game changer here. I didn't have Internet access since... ~13, AFAIR, and even that was over dial-up. Given how today there's infinite amounts of brain crack streaming down the ever wider tubes, I fear a kid left in front of an Internet-connected computer will never get bored enough to start tinkering.
So I'm all for lots of unsupervised computer time, but for my future kids, I plan to not introduce Internet access too soon. Mind you - I'm not worried about the content (porn and other usual scares), just about it being like more addictive TV.
I don't think that's true. We didn't suddenly become better at building internal combustion engines because people grew up with cars. Just because you're good at using something doesn't mean you could build it. Race car drivers don't inherently make good engineers and professional esports players don't inherently make good game developers.
> We didn't suddenly become better at building internal combustion engines because people grew up with cars.
Are you sure? What about people growing up with cars, curious about what goes on under the hood from childhood, with references available on how they work, that they can connect to what they've seen themselves? Maybe this gives an edge over those whose learning started later?
Human technology is a long ladder of improvements one generation makes over the one prior. It's not obvious that stone age toys are the best preparation for contributing to the next step of the ladder.
Start off by teaching your kids how easy it is to fix things. Involve them with easy things to start with and then gradually more complex things. By the time their 17th birthday rolls around (or whatever age it is in your country), buy them a broken car for their birthday. They're very likely to quickly learn how to fix it.
Ah, the grandma effect... no, we have not found a solution to that issue yet ;)
Well, I guess we let the kids play with those presents for the holidays they were given in. Then, after the grandparents have departed, the toys slowly start "disappearing"...
We put them in a special closet that the kids still have access to.
Every once in a while the kids will dive into that closet and rediscover some of the louder flashier toys.
But, mainly, it's just the simple stuff left out on the shelves for every day access.
I love how the toys beg for attention now. We have so many things that after a couple minutes of inactivity will shout out one last desperate "Play with me!"
This infuriates me. My son would move his focus to something else, and would subsequently be distracted by noises and flashing lights.
It reminds me of 'attract mode' used in slot machines and arcades games, though I at least see that there's direct commercial benefit to this.
Stealing my child's attention for no significant gain to them is plain wrong. Perhaps the commercial rationale is that the toy appears to be more popular than it really is, leading to further sales.
Or perhaps the developers just had a few hundred bytes and a timer interrupt to spare.
We nicknamed one of the toys are kids were given, "needy ball" because it did this. Fortunately, our kids generally prefer toys they could play with instead of toys that wanted to play with them.
I have a very good solution: a garbage bin. It sounds harsh but after the second round of this well meaning relatives will either bring better toys or will stop giving stuff, everybody wins. Taking 'wrong' toys to the goodwill just keeps them in play and will essentially make them somebody else's problem.
And good toys (which tend to live a lot longer than crap ones) too can be taken to the goodwill later on and then will make someone else happy.
We do a book exchange. We tell all would be givers that we will not accept gifts but only used/new books. You come to our house and give one of your books to our child and we will give you one back in return. Works for birthday parties too.
Donate them to charity. Explain to the kids it is relative's fault for not also gifting you enough money to afford a mansion for housing ten jillion toys, but there just isn't space for everything.
I also like the suggestion here to take them apart and use it as a learning experience, knowing that they probably won't get put back together in working order.
Yea, we do the whole toy donation thing at least twice a year, and have always done it so it's not weird to our daughter. Bonus is she understands that other kids will get to play with the toys, so she has fun picking out the ones she thinks these unnamed kids will have the most fun with. She now thinks that everything is supposed to be donated when you're done with it, which is kind of a cute and semi-healthy outlook (she told me that after we're done living in our house we should donate it to some other family).
It helps that they genuinely outgrow many of their toys during the early years. I was a military wife. I used routine military moves as a good excuse to cut back on the toys and other aspects of North American Affluenza. "We have a weight limit. We can only move so much. The new place will be smaller. etc"
If you give it to Goodwill, they will sell it. You aren't forcing it on another child. Different people have different values.
If that idea offends you, I will say again: I also really like the idea of taking them apart, knowing they are unlikely to get put back together in working order. So if the idea of donating them doesn't work for you, go with that.
Or come up with some other solution. My comment in a forum in no way impels you to do as I said.
I have a few nephews who got showered with gifts every bday/Christmas/etc, to the point where they no longer knew which toys they owned and no longer cared about the new ones they got for more than 5 minutes.
So we (wife and I) had an idea. Instead of gifting them toys, take that money and put it in their savings account (one account per kid). We slowly managed to convince the rest of the immediate family (grandmas resisted a bit) to follow the example and now the kids have a growing savings account (which hopefully they'll appreciate later in life).
With that said, we didn't stop giving them toys altogether, they just get a lot less toys which makes the ones they get that much more special.
We create wishlists for each of our children (now with their participation). The overhwelming focus is on things that facilitate outdoor fun (sports equipment, hiking/camping gear, etc) or inside creative outlet (arts/crafts supplies, maker stuff, etc). For birthdays, we don't requests gifts, and instead share a donation link to our favorite local charity instead. This link, with a "no gifts" note, is included in party invitations, too.
Just be open with people and they'll usually respond positively (in our experience).
We just hide 90% of them in the basement, and cycle toys out as our kids get bored of the current selection. This will probably stop being a viable strategy once they are old enough :(
Send them here[1], lots of great options / they also explain why open ended play is effective for different types of development. I've been using the site for all my new nephew / niece gifts and everyone loves it. [1] https://www.roseandrex.com
We asked grandparents for annual memberships to experiences in our city. For example a membership to the the Children's Museum, Science Museum, and Zoo are awesome and give us something to do throughout the year.
