But the manufacturer recommends it for kids 3 and up. It's officially aimed at children 5 and older. White, who said that toys are getting increasingly violent, compared her effort to struggles that began decades ago to restrict smoking and crack down on drunken driving. Psychologist Karen Shanor, PhD, tells WebMD that toys are crucial in shaping kids and that violent toys are unhealthy. How a child spends his or her time is very important.
Toys are ways that kids learn about the world and practice being a part of the world.
Shanor has written a book, The Emerging Mind , that discusses the psychological development of children. They give form to behavior by stimulating play, but they do not motivate aggressive behavior. How a parent behaves toward a child has much more influence than a toy. This past September, Congress held hearings on youth exposure to violence in video games and other media, in the wake of a Federal Trade Commission report that criticized the routine marketing of violent video games to young children. The FTC stopped short of calling for legislation.