Are Traditional Toys The Way Forward?

The other night while watching a television show, there was a commercial that advertised a video game for children. The video game had an electrical tricycle-esque contraption that was hooked up to the video game console. The video game centred on riding a bicycle down a path. It was reminiscent of Mario Kart only with an actual bike to ride instead of a controller on which to push buttons. The game sold itself as being a way to encourage the little tyke to exercise!

Do you remember when the best way to encourage your little one to ride his or her bicycle was to give him or her a bicycle? You would build the bike, send the child outside with it and they were guaranteed hours of merriment! They could ride around and explore their worlds.

Intelligently designed traditional toys encourage children to think and to be creative. They leave the majority of the story up to the child to invent and it is this process of invention that can help set a child up for life in terms of learning and creativity skills. By simply playing, children exercise their motor, cognitive and social development skills. Traditional toys give children this opportunity by not providing them with all of the details in the way that modern toys do.

In this day of video gamed everything, traditional toys are long overdue for a comeback. Wooden blocks, dolls, jack in the boxes, all of it kids enjoy these toys just as much, if not more than they enjoy their video-centric counterparts. Any parent who has brought home the latest and most popular toy on the market only to have their daughter play with it for five minutes and then lose interest in the bells and whistles in favour of spending four hours playing with the box the toy came in can attest to that.

Gary is a father of two and owner of stylish kids store Monkeyshine where you can find a great range of traditional toys including quality wooden toys, outdoor activities and games.