If there’s one thing about toys that I hate, it’s the noise, noise, noise, noise (to borrow from the Grinch…).That is, the noise from battery operated toys. I am perfectly fine listening to my kids bang pots and pans, hammer on the xylophone, sing really loud and off-melody, and throw their tennis balls against the wall. But listening to a talking toy for more than a minute gives me the shudders…
Number one: The sound itself is just bad. No matter how good we are with technology these days, talking or singing toys sound like talking or singing TOYS. And that’s just no fun. I remember that about 10 years ago I saw an episode of the sitcom “Roseanne”. I think her sister had a toddler and she took him to a speech therapist because his words sounded very “staccato”… until they found that his beloved toy repeated the same words over and over and sounded, well, staccato. This brings me to
Number two: Repetition. And I mean real repetition. The same three words over and over. No change at all. All the sudden, my daughter asking me for the thirtieth time when are we going to the park sounds lovely… because at least she varies her requests a little bit.
Number three: What they are saying is really not educational yet it’s packaged as “learning time”; as if this singing tea pot is really contributing to my kid’s preschool learning… And I seriously doubt that she will learn Spanish from the kid-computer that repeats abierto and cerrado (over and over and over…).
By now, you have probably figured out that I’m not a big fan of battery operated toys. Yes, this is also part of Simplicity Parenting but toy-noise annoyed me even before I became a mom. Also, to me most battery operated toys are really one trick ponies. Kids get excited about them right away and loose interest even faster. This immediate response is probably what makes them such a favorite when it comes to Christmas presents. After all, who wants to give something where it might take children a little while to figure things out, get creative, and find different way to use.
The slight snarkiness of this post is probably caused by the fact that we had to wait in a room with a lot of noise-toys today. Please comment and let me know your own thoughts…
I know what you mean about these toys being a ‘one trick pony’ and then your child is bored with it. I get irritated as what gets marketed as ‘educational’ as well. The best toys are the ones where the child themselves can come up with many different ‘games’ or uses from one toy
I sooo agree with you. I think it’s sometimes hard to be patient and let kids figure out what to do with certain toys or things. They might not even look at them for a few weeks and all the sudden they start playing with them….often in unexpected ways
The toys that cross the line for me are things like Little People sets. When my older girls had Little People, these sets didn’t make sounds. It was up to the kids (and their playmate parents) to make the sounds and have the conversations. Now many of the sets make the animal sounds, have Little People who talk, or have sound effects, etc. What’s the sense of a toy that is supposed to inspire pretending and role-playing to make the sound or have the conversation for you? Fortunately, there is a simple solution for toys like these that have redeeming qualities: skip the batteries,
Yep, I think most of them give up their battery life after a while and you can just choose not to put new batteries in… It seems often that the toy companies try to “renew” their products and the only thing they can think of are – well – to add batteries