Steven Aarons, owner of Child's Play, a toy store in the District, said he tries to stock his store with toys that will allow children to be creative. Some toys become less open-ended when they are computerized, Levin said. Fisher-Price, she complains, took a line of classic toys, including nesting cups, and put a chip in them so they would talk to children. When nesting cups say things on cue, a child is less likely to use them in imaginative ways and the toy is less useful in teaching about concepts such as size relationships and sequencing, Levin said. The child doesn't find their own problems to solve.
Some children notice when their play options are restricted by a toy manufacturer's decision.
It made you think more about it. Thinking and fantasizing are what child's play is all about, though some parents worry that too much fantasy is a bad thing. Because children use play to help slow down the real world and make it simpler, parent interaction can be important in guiding them, according to Scarlett and others. But in playing with their children, parents shouldn't try to turn the activity into a prep course, experts say. Unfortunately, the trend among many adults is to spoil children's playtime by loading it up with specific goals and lessons, said Kathy Hirsh-Pasek, a cognitive psychologist from Temple University.