My personal thoughts on modern toys for babies and toddlers...

There are two ways of looking at this subject. First off I can understand the purpose for modern toys with all there busyness, and colours and lights and sounds, this does stimulate babies to interact with the toys, and yes it can be educational and it prepares our babies for this overly technical world we live in today. However I have a stronger belief in the "old way", I think we are losing our roots and along with them the things that were once thought to be important values. When a child is given a simple toy to play with, say a wooden train with some very primary colours, and this toy makes no noise and does not operate on batteries, you will find that the child will surprisingly be very entertained. It is not only from the toy its self, it is that child’s own imagination that is entertaining him. I really believe a child who is given only basic toys, will develop a much stronger creativity and imagination as well as many other "values". These children are less likely to become bored if they are not being over stimulated, they will be more likely to create something to do with themselves when they are bored and less likely to sit in front of the television, computer or video games, they will pay closer attention to detail, they will focus better, listen better, learn better, and will be able to handle being alone with their thoughts as an adult. I watch the new generations having a very hard time doing this, they have always got to be busy, being with someone or being stimulated by some outside source as apposed to being inspired by themselves and their thoughts. So my personal opinion would be to cut back the busy, modern "educational" toys and get your child some good old fashioned wooden toys, allow them to discover their education and their world rather then having it drilled into them by a mechanical voice that miraculously comes from a plastic box with lights and colours and strange images all over it and tells you a cartoon picture of some funny looking thing is a pig and makes the sound "oink". Please! this is far too much stimulation for a little child so new to a world that's already so full of so many things. And to learn all those text book things that the modern toys are teaching kids, try these few simple things, sing your child the alphabet yourself, point out that pig in a story book or at a local farm, make that "oinking" sound yourself when you point it out, I bet you’ll get a giggle from them, it’s fun and they’re learning. Children need to interact with their world (not just toys) and it doesn’t take much for us to help them do that.

A brand of toys that I absolutely love is "Melissa & Doug" they make all wooden toys for babies and toddlers, they are wonderful fun, entertaining and educational and best of all the kids love them.

Wonderbrains offers a wide selection of Melissa & Doug toys and many other great brands.

How Babies Learn

Prior to the twentieth century, most people thought babies were passive observers of their world, with no choice and no desire but to sit around and wait for things to happen to them. As philosopher and psychologist William James described, it, the world of the newborn was thought to be a whirring buzz of confusion. No one thought babies had any way of dealing with this tumult, and certainly no way of making sense of it. Due to advances of many areas of study, we now know that the opposite is true. Babies are active participants in their world - experimenting with it, learning how things work in it and creating their own interpretation of it. We also know that babies come into the world with a surprising capacity to make sense of what they see, hear and touch; they're prepared to expect certain things in their environment, such as the face of a loving dad or the voice of an adoring mom. In other words, babies are born to learn.

All this exploration and experimentation adds up to learning, that not-so-gradual process where your baby takes in information from his experiences and turns it into a meaningful sense of reality. It's a magical time. Your baby begins his first year responding to the world through reflex actions, and ends it making conscious decisions about how to react. He move from recognizing almost nothing he sees to having an understanding of much of what is going on around him. Best of all, he progresses from making faces because he is hungry, to smiling at you because he has learned that you will make him feel good.
Sarah Kennedy, Parent Educator - Genius Babies consultant, Genius Babies Inc.
http://www.GeniusBabies.com Baby Books for Babies and Toddlers: http://www.geniusbabies.com/books.html
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