Old-fashioned playthings have lots of benefits for modern kids

By Karen MacPherson, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette | Tuesday, December 05, 2006

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and Journal Staff

Parents face a tough balancing act in choosing toys for their children.

On the one side, there are high-tech toys, those flashy, animated playthings highly coveted by the kids. On the other side, there are the traditional toys — construction sets, board games, arts-and-crafts kits — that inspire kid-powered creativity.

The balancing act is particularly challenging this year because some of the new electronic toys offer more play value than their predecessors, experts say.

“Many of them are much more age-appropriate, and they’re not just about pushing buttons,” said Joanne Oppenheim, co-author, with her daughter Stephanie, of the annually published “Oppenheim Toy Portfolio.” “There’s more physicality to them. More often they are getting kids off the couch and on their feet. And they’re not as didactic as they used to be.”

Although high-tech toys are all the rage, the Oppenheims and other experts emphasize that it’s still important for kids to have more traditional playthings.

“In fact, I would suggest that parents delay kids’ exposure to these (high-tech) toys as long as possible,” Diane Levin, a Wheelock College child-development expert, said.

Melanie Paulson, early intervention/preschool teacher at General Beadle School in Rapid City, is a staunch supporter of traditional toys.

“They allow for more creativity,” she said. “The kids can experiment with their own cause and effect.”

Some of her favorites are wooden blocks and Lincoln Logs. Lincoln Logs, created in 1917 by John Lloyd Wright, son of the notable architect Frank Lloyd Wright, are a toy consisting of notched miniature logs, that can be used to build small-model log buildings.

“When the kids and parents sit down and build together, it allows for creativity and the child can develop imitation skills,” she said.

Paulson has lots of traditional toys in her classroom at General Beadle school.

“I love wooden toys, they are smooth, and the kids enjoy them so much,” she said.

Paulson also appreciates puzzles which promote cognitive skills such as problem solving, reasoning and seeing whole-part relationships. Puzzles also help children refine their fine motor skills.

“The parents may need to sit down with the child and teach the basics of the puzzle at the beginning, but kids like doing puzzles,” she said.

Parents know that Santa’s sleigh is top-heavy with high-tech toys this holiday season, everything from kid-geared cell phones and digital cameras to an interactive DVD version of the traditional children’s game “Candy Land.”

Although nearly half of the “Hot Dozen” toys on his annual list are electronic, “Toy Wishes” magazine publisher and toy-industry expert Jim Silver emphasizes that “it’s important to balance the toy box. There’s nothing wrong with a video game as long as you balance it with a different kind of toy,” he said. “Look for toys that help your kids express themselves, discover their world and develop their imaginations.”