~ kaka hoki

Thanks Michelle – I’ll check it out!

Thanks Gabrielle! You make some great points too. We are the products of our own knowledge and inventions, aren’t we? I think the challenge comes with trying to balance all of the information, the technology, and the interactions. All three are tools that can be used to make wonderful things happen with young children and their families…it just all depends on how they are used. Thanks for joining the conversation!

I am not advocating a dark ages mentality, toys are so good! I have been known to play with them even when children are not present :). However, as my coworker pointed out the other day branded toys, like a Lighting McQueen car can only be a Lightning McQueen car. A generic car can be a race car, an ambulance, a police car, etc. I love CARS the movie, don’t get me wrong but non-electronic and non-branded items can really open up a plethora of other options.

The other thing I think about was from in a comment you responded to, ” It’s not easy for parents to weed through the advertisements to figure out which toys and books really are beneficial.” This is a problem that we created. Psychologists and folks who began the work of focusing on the mind and body and how it develops and how that affects social aspects as well as other things, CREATED advertising. Whether you want to acknowledge it as directly or indirectly. A psychologist was the one to help the advertising industry understand how to “market” products to certain demographics. Because of this we have this duality between what “experts” on the packaging say and what the scientific research says.

It is truly very difficult to help parents understand the difference. And I have yet to come up with a solid one size fits all approach to this explanation. You just have to educate families, just like how you mentioned, in a positive coaching manner. Being sure not to say “You bought the wrong toy” but instead helping them see what fun and effect they can have on their child. Everything in moderation 🙂

These are fantastic examples of strategies that interventionist can use to help families facilitate communication WITH electronic toys! You are so right, Sarah, you have to work with what you’ve got and if you’re creative, you can do a lot. Not all electronic toys are no-nos – it’s how they are used (or not used) to engage children that counts. Thanks so much for adding these rich, practical strategies to the blog post!

That’s exciting! I love how you ask families to bring a list of their child’s words. That invites their active participation and places value on their observations right from the beginning. Well done, Michelle!

I also tell parents that some toys…I think there are some fisher price farm toys that have animals that make the sounds can help, but the parents has to encourage the sounds as long as they encourage the sounds with things like songs and such. There also toys that make okay sounds, or music. I like the Baby Mozart Cube, and there is a playskool toy with ball that when you push the button start a fan that blows the balls around and around. If find you can use words like ‘push’, ‘ball’, ‘catch’ and other things with them. I don’t like them either, but I try to do my best with what I have. I just recently had a lot of success with one of those Melissa and Doug Puzzles that make noises when you put the pieces down (or when the lights turn off, or it moves). We were working on making choices though, not words. Once the child became more interested in the sounds and not putting the pieces in, mom took away the puzzle (and planned to take the batteries out).

In the end I suppose I try to make the most of it and try to suggest that the child can use things like pots and pans and old cereal box as toys. If the family drinks that comes in cans, i show them how to make a piggy bank out of it. I emphasis parent engagement playing games like chase, tickling and things like that.

That’s so interesting, Michelle. Do you hear from families that they have made changes based on the info you provided? Lots of screen time can be a hard habit to break. I remember having that discussion with a family once and when the mother added up all of her toddler’s screen time, she was shocked. She hadn’t really thought about it before so it seemed to be a really useful discussion for her. She was very open to the information.