At first, it was a simply stated wish.
“I wish we had a Nintendo Switch.”
But it quickly escalated into whining.
“There’s nothing to do at home!”
“All my friends have a Nintendo Switch! I’m the only one without one.”
“I have nothing to talk about with my friends. They always talk about Nintendo Switch games and I don’t know anything. I feel left out!”
Then it turned into a sales pitch.
“Do you know you can practice math problems on the Nintendo Switch?”
“I can learn stuff! I’ll be smarter.”
And then bargaining.
“How about a Nintendo Switch for my birthday present? I won’t ask for anything else.”
My 7-year old son’s Saturday playdate with his classmate was supposed to be a fun afternoon playing pretend safari. Lately, he and his classmates have been interested in animals. They enjoy trading facts, figures, and trivia about various animals (“Mom, did you know that the snow leopard eats ibex? They both live in the mountains.” I did not know that!).
My 9-year old daughter and I tagged along, my daughter because there were going to be other kids her age, and me because I didn’t want the other moms to feel like they’re supposed to babysit my kids.
It was a very hot day. Soon, all the kids moved indoors to the second floor where there was air conditioning. At first, the moms on the first floor could hear the kids running around. Then it was quiet.
Turns out, all six kids were crouched around two Nintendo Switch devices. They took turns but there was some arguing later about who took longer than usual.
Soon, it was time for us to leave. The remaining kids made arrangements to continue playing from their own homes after we left. My kids sulked on the way out. They were crabby the rest of the afternoon, grumpy about the gadget they didn’t have.
“Did you play with computer games when you were younger?” I asked my husband over dinner.
“Not computer games like today, but arcade games and pinball. Of course I had to use my own money each time to play. They were very addicting.”
I added, “We had a handheld gadget similar to the Gameboy. It had only one black and white game in it. Bricks of different shapes fell and you had to turn and move them around to form lines. It was fun for a while and then we grew bored with it. There wasn’t much else you could do with it. And then there was a Tamagotchi craze in our school. I never understood this. My classmates talked about feeding their Tamagotchi and putting it to sleep to make it grow. It was just a digital picture of something that was growing. It didn’t make any sense to me.”
Later that week, when we went to the department store to get some school supplies, our kids asked to see the toy department and there, lo and behold, was the much coveted Nintendo Switch at approximately $300 (games, separate cost).
It was not only the price that put me off. Something about this gadget did not sit right with me.
This toy will have my kids sitting down by themselves, glued to a screen, for hours. Already, they felt they didn’t have enough time to swim in the river, run around with the neighbors, do free play, and read all the books they wanted to read. How much time will this Nintendo Switch steal from these activities?
Addiction to electronic games has become a big problem that the local elementary school teachers have decided to impose a limit of 1 hour per day for playing. To which a kid in my daughter’s class replied, “Great! My mom only lets me play for 30 minutes, now I can tell her that my teacher said I can play for an hour!”
And then, both my husband and I read A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood (Movie Tie-In): Neighborly Words of Wisdom from Mister Rogers.
Some toys make children conform to them. They are not objects that children could make conform to their own fantasy and feelings. The time spent making those toys work means less time spent in the kind of play that young children need most — play of their own inventions. There is a big difference between toys that we can adapt to our inner needs and toys that make us adapt to them.
I’m often asked if I think there’s something about electronic games that is actually bad for children. What I have come to believe is this: The healthiest playthings for young children are those that a child can make conform to his or her own unique fantasies and feelings. By and large, electronic games do just the opposite. They make a child conform to the program inside the machine. It may be true that electronic games can increase a child’s eye-hand coordination and even some kinds of concentration. I’d like to think that’s so. Where I become concerned, however, is when I see electronic games becoming the mainstay of a child’s play.
– From Chapter Four: Creativity and Play
Mister Rogers articulated exactly why certain toys have held the interest of our kids longer than others. Dolls and stuffed animals are perfect for playing school, house, zoo and all sorts of pretend. The box of blocks can be made into anything, absolutely anything they want.
Lego blocks used to be simpler but they now come in elaborate themed sets (i.e. Ninjago, Star Wars, Harry Potter, Jurassic Park) with instruction manuals on how to put the pieces together. Friends and family have gifted my son with various sets. First, my son would put together the pieces according to the instruction manual. Later, when he gets tired of playing the prescribed way, he takes it apart and fuses parts of one set with the parts of another set to make something entirely his own. When my daughter came home with electrical parts (something they used in science class to learn about electricity), my son installed it inside one of his “airplanes” so that it would light up or spin a propeller.
One way to think about play is as the process of finding new combinations for known things — combinations that may yield new forms of expression, new inventions, new discoveries, and new solutions. I like thinking about play in this way because it gives play some of the importance it deserves.
– From Chapter Four: Creativity and Play
Art and science, which is all about creating something, begin as play.
The best kind of play doesn’t cost much. We live right next door to an importer and they always have stacks of cardboard. Google anything + cardboard and you will be inspired by the simple and fancy creations of cardboard enthusiasts.
Pretending doesn’t require expensive toys, says Mister Rogers. I will always remember that one afternoon when I was in the kitchen busy cleaning up when I heard my daughter giggling outside. “Is your brother outside too?” I asked. No, he wasn’t. So why was she giggling? I found her with the jump rope set up like this and she kept running across it pretending it was the finish line. “Ah, tanoshikatta, that was so much fun,” she said, more to herself.
I’m sure I haven’t heard the last of Nintendo Switch, but maybe, by holding out to the pressure, our kids will realize they just don’t have the time for it.
becoming sherilyn 