Take Control of the Toys

If you want some peace during the holiday season, be mindful of those loud, noisy toys.  They are cute, fun and might keep a child occupied for awhile, but they also can be very annoying.  These loud items can try one's patience and bring out the worst in anyone who isn't use to so much sound.  Rather than be tempted to defend the toy, be rude to adults, swear at your kid, or run out the house, make plans for the loud toys.


When dealing with noisy toys, try doing the following:


1.  Rotate the toys.  Allow the child to play with one at a time.
2.  Don't put batteries in all the toys at once.
3.  Avoid bombarding small children with so much.
4.  Take away toys they aren't playing with and hide them away until you are ready to rotate them.
5.  Don't argue with a spouse or relative about a toy he or she has bought.  All will get played with eventually, just not at that moment.  If the issue becomes a big deal, resolve in your mind to rid yourself of the problem.  Remember the land of the broken toys in the movie, Toy Story?
6.  If a toy doesn't work, take it back to the store and exchange it for one that doesn't make any noise.
7.  Put a time limit on how long a child will play with certain toys, be sure to have quieter replacements.


The more ways you come up with regulating the toys, the better you will feel.  It is never a good idea to allow children to run amuck playing with everything all at once.  Noisy toys will drive you crazy!


Nicholl McGuire also maintains the blog, When Mothers Cry, see here.

Five Tips for Buying Toys for Toddlers

Most of us have been there before. You open the mailbox to find a brightly colored invitation to the birthday party of your favorite two year old. You hang the invitation on the refrigerator with great intentions to stop at the toy store after work to buy a great birthday gift. Several weeks later, you realize the party starts in 2 hours and you have yet to get the perfect gift. You jump in the car, race to the toy store, and run inside. Suddenly, you are surrounded by a sea of remarkable toys and start to panic! Take a deep breath and slow down for just a minute. These five tips will help you choose the perfect educational toy and get to the party in time.

First, be sure to buy a toy that is for a toddler. Sure, their parents may tell you that their child is so advanced, that they should be in third grade by now. But let’s face it; you should buy a toy that’s fit for a two year old. Otherwise, the child may not be interested in it, and end up just playing with the box. Also, it is important that they toy is in the right age range for the child to make sure it is safe. Little hands and mouths are not safe around toys with little detachable parts. Most toy stores arrange their products by corresponding age ranges, so head straight to the section designed for the child you have in mind.

Next, think about choosing a gift that allows parents to interact with their child to build skills important for later academic success. It is important for toddlers to be exposed to letters, letter sounds, and numbers. Look for brightly colored blocks, oversized flashcards, or puzzles with letters and numbers that may also have a tactile component like a fuzzy duck or shiny moon. Some phonological based toys also talk or sing to children. Parents always enjoy helping their child explore and create with oversized paper and crayons, or clay.

Third, to please both parent and child, shop around for great toddler books. Books made especially for toddlers are typically ones made from thick cardboard. They may have pop-up characters, animals with fur that kids can pet, and flowers with a scratch-and-sniff scent. It is important for parents to read to their children to introduce them to language and ideas, and also to instill a sense that reading and learning are important. Books also provide great bonding moments between parents and children.

Next, remember not to overdo it. Sure, it is tempting to try and pick out the biggest and best gift that will be at the party. It is always flattering when the birthday boy or girl latches on to the gift you presented, and barely lets go long enough to finishing opening the rest! But, the size of the gift and the amount of money you spend is not as important as the impact that your gift may have on that particular child. Choose something that will stimulate their minds and spur their development.

Last but not least, think creatively when shopping for educational toys for toddlers. Maybe you could try a plant that they can learn to love, water, and care for, along with their very first watering can. Or perhaps they would enjoy a wardrobe of dress-up clothes, so they can pretend to be a soldier, astronaut, or athlete.

When you are racing through the toy store on the way to another great birthday party, remember to choose a stimulating and creative toy that is age appropriate for your little friend. Just don’t forget to grab some wrapping paper on the way to the cash register.

Mark Easterday is the Director of Marketing for Educational Toys & Puzzles. Educational Toys & Puzzles carries a complete line of educational and wooden toys that promote cognitive, motor and creative skills in children. For more information about Educational Toys & Puzzles please visit http://www.educationaltoysandpuzzles.com/.

Educational Toys Are Good… But Don't My Children Need Some Toys Just For Fun?

Okay, so this opinion might not be the most popular. But please, don't crucify me. I'm a good dad. I got my kids all the toys my wife found to help the kids’ "development." You know, educational toys. The kind you have to drive twenty miles out of your way to tiny store in a strip mall in West Nowhere to find, or order from some obscure catalog or website based in Canada.

And believe me, I'm glad my kids have things like mini computers that teach spelling and math, crystal-growing science project kits, memory games, puzzle cubes and problem-solving computer CD-ROMs. But I sometimes wonder, when I see those toys strewn all over the living room floor, abandoned and neglected while Katie and little Mitch are sticking balls of Silly Putty in their ears, maybe kids should have some toys just for fun and nothing else?

After all, when I was a kid we didn't have all this stuff. We had little red wagons and toy cowboy pistols. We had Lincoln Logs, Matchbox cars, building blocks and our imaginations. I can remember a summer when I was 6 when my only new toy was a stick my dad helped me turn into a fishing pole. And that kept me busy seven days a week!

I'll tell you this much. I would rather see my kids play with a toy that they enjoy, that inspires them to run around and have fun and explore the world than some "educational" toy that they're going to sit around playing with for a few hours until they tire of it and never touch it again.

Heck, I'd even rather see them chase each other around the back yard with toy guns than sit inside with some pseudo-egghead puzzle or game that's supposed to make me feel better about spending fifty bucks!

You can’t open a newspaper or turn on a TV news program without somebody saying that today’s children are obese and inactive. And I see it all the time. My kids’ friends come over to play and I can’t help but notice that a lot of them are pretty chubby. And they come from good families, not the kind where the parents are feeding them Twinkies and plopping them in front of the TV for hours at a time. But a lot of these kids are coming over and playing with our “educational” computer math games, and just sitting on their butts!

This is what I’d like to see. I’d like people to let go of this idea that a toy has to be clearly “educational” for it to be worthwhile. I’d like people to consider other factors, like if the toy will get our kids moving around and playing actively, or if it will turn them into little couch potatoes. I’d like people to think about whether their kids will actually enjoy the toy, or whether it will sit untouched.

Let’s put away all these silly ideas about what’s right for our kids and just them be kids and have fun the old-fashioned way.


About the Author
A Canadian online toy store featuring educational toys such as lego, lego Mindstorms, aquadoodle, science toys, outdoor toys, music toys that will help your child learn while having fun. http://www.mastermindtoys.com/