Interesting article on NPR about Toys and Children’s Imaginations

I will have to remember this article as B grows into a full-fledged walking, talking, little tyke.

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=19212514

Children’s imaginations are an important part of development and I hope to encourage our son to play make-believe, use his imagination and be active instead of relying on a toy. Our society is heavily focused on buying children the latest and greatest toys. The research findings in the article surprised me a bit at first but after letting it sit, I had to agree with their findings. So many children today are being diagnosed with behavioral problems (such as ADD, ADHD, etc) and not to say that this is solely the reason behind it but it brings up some valid points such as this simple exercise below (taken from the article):

We know that children's capacity for self-regulation has diminished. A recent study replicated a study of self-regulation first done in the late 1940s, in which psychological researchers asked kids ages 3, 5 and 7 to do a number of exercises. One of those exercises included standing perfectly still without moving. The 3-year-olds couldn't stand still at all, the 5-year-olds could do it for about three minutes, and the 7-year-olds could stand pretty much as long as the researchers asked. In 2001, researchers repeated this experiment. But, psychologist Elena Bodrova at Mid-Continent Research for Education and Learning says, the results were very different.

"Today's 5-year-olds were acting at the level of 3-year-olds 60 years ago, and today's 7-year-olds were barely approaching the level of a 5-year-old 60 years ago," Bodrova explains. "So the results were very sad."

I hope to be more conscience of my child’s play as he grows and encourage an imaginative playtime with less focus on “things”.