The Influence of Toys on the Behavior of Children

Did you know that LEGOs can boost young children’s engineering skills (MIT School of Engineering)? It’s true! Studies show that LEGOs can prove important for developing skills used later in life. From pink, to blue, to long or thick, LEGOs are building blocks that come in all colors, shapes and sizes. With dots on the top, and holes on the bottom, LEGOs are designed to interlock enable to form structures. LEGOs help many young children develop skills such as early engineering, fine motor skills, an creativity.

​Violent T.V shows and video games can increase children's aggression. Dr Phil explains "the number one negative effect is they tend to in appropriately resolve anxiety by externalizing it.  They can attack someone, they can kick a wall or they can be mean to a dog, abet or even people." It means that the kids who are exposed to violent shows or

Violent media has been proven time and time again over the past 60 years to cause increased aggression in children and young adults. The long term and short term exposure to violent media has been shown to cause “increased feelings of hostility, expectations that others will behave aggressively, desensitization to the pain of others, and increased likelihood of interacting and responding to others with violence” (Committee on Public Education). One of the most famous experiments done on the subject was done in 1961 by the psychologist Albert Bandura at Stanford University. In this experiment children between the ages of three and six were put in a playroom containing a many activities and toys (Cherry). One of those toys was a bobo doll; a 5 foot tall inflatable doll. An adult would enter and either play with the child from a complete ten minutes, the control group, or at some point during those ten minutes begin beating up the doll, the experimental group. They would also say things such as “pow” and “he keeps coming back for more” while attacking it (Cherry).

Teachers, parents, and caregivers all struggle with some behaviors and actions of the children in our care. Is nice to have a magic formula--a specific bit of advice or strategy to work in all situations, there is no magic formula, but it helps to remember that children's behaviors do not occur in a vacuum. Instead, five basic issues or possibilities that help explain a child’s actions drive them. Understanding these issues

At times, an 8-year-old may surprise you with their depth of critical thinking, insightful observation, sophisticated emotions, and a newfound sense of self-confidence. You might see a sassy little girl being very dramatic over “who writes prettier”, or the young boy claiming “he can do everything by himself” as he stakes his claim to independence. Growth and development is the qualitative and quantitative changes that occur in each individual. Because it occurs sequentially, nurse can recognize developmental needs in a child. When facing surgery anxiety and fear is commonly felt at any age. However when it is a child facing surgery, finding the necessary means to alleviate their fear and anxiety is left up to the nurse. Nurses must be perceptive, creative, and occasionally ingenious in efforts to decrease a child’s anxiety level and sooth their fears. One proven method to assist the nurse is the use of therapeutic toys

Children’s playdolls play a significant role in shaping the worldview and values of girls. The doll industry designs playdolls primarily for girls with features of various colorful wigs, costumes and accessories, reflective of social fashion. Oftentimes, playdolls are placed in various situations, such as dollhouse, baby room and kitchen. All of these doll features may teach children how to look beauty and care for babies and do housework (Wagner-Ott, A., 2002). Likewise, Kuther and McDonald (2004, P.44) recognized that “play with Barbie dolls influences gender role development, as most of the girls reported play scripts entailing decidedly feminine and sexualized roles. Perhaps girls explored feminine gender role through play.”

Popular toys have an effect on the media. Take for example, Toy Story a popular childrens movie that featured many toys as protagonist in the story and see how the movie had an effect on the toys that were being sold. If it was not for the movie, then the Toy Story toys would not have sold nearly as well as if they were in the movie. According to the article,Social media firestorm awakens toymakers to an absent Rey, it states,¨ Twitter exploded with the hashtag #WheresRey¨.In the movie Star Wars: The Force Awakens Rey was the leading character in the movie. Fans who have watched the movie knew this because they went and watched the movie. From the trailers it seemed as if Rey was going to be a small character in the movie where she actually was the hero that went and saved the day. Exampling from the article stated above, Disney was holding back on the Rey toys to avoid giving away a key plot point to the fans of the Star Wars movie.

Gender involves construction through society and is regulated through norms giving rise to masculinity and femininity. We can see, as mentioned in the Anderson book, that the construction of gender can be observed. The example given is the differences between the toys in the girls and boys aisle. As an exercise in my Introduction to Women and Gender Studies we were assigned to explore a toy store and compare the toys within two gendered aisles. I remember as I walked around in the girls aisle it was as if the color pink exploded and there were toys such as vacuums and dolls. Whereas, the boys aisle had guns and toys that enhanced their spatial thinking such as puzzles. Gendered identities are imposed onto us since we are young until masculinity

Toys that do double duty are wonderful choices for children. Lego sets are an example of this type of toy. Children first have the fun of building the toy, and then they get to play with it. Amazon has a variety of Lego toys, including Lego tanks for sale.

As a concerned parent, one might fear that his child may grow up violent when the parent overhears the child shout out, “Bang! Bang! I killed you!” during a playdate. This incident can lead the parent to question if toy weapons are appropriate in the household or not. However, before the parent decides to hide all the toy weapons, it is important for both the parent and the child to realize that a toy weapon does not have the same capability as a real weapon, hence the word “toy.” Plus, toy weapons have existed for generations, so why have they become such a huge issue now? Unlike the parent, when a younger child picks up a toy weapon he does not make the connection between the toy weapon- that does not harm- and a real weapon that has the potential to really hurt someone. Also, playing with toy weapons is just a normal behavior for most children.

1.Discuss the possible cognitive effect (if any) that each of the toys has on the age group that the toy is targeted toward. What cognitive stimulation does the toy provide?

For the study, 300 six-month-olds were observed by familiar guardians (mother, father, relatives, friends, etc.), and the child’s aggressive acts were recorded and reported by the guardians. During this stage, the infants would primarily display anger by pulling on hair, but some of them showed through anger through hitting and biting. While between the ages of six and twelve months, displays of aggression increased in the children, but then decreased after the group was tested in a similar scenario at 33 months. In this study, aggression was defined as the use of instrumental force (tugging on the desired toy) and bodily force (physical abuse). Throughout the entire study from 6 to 33 months, the children’s ratio of use of instrumental force to bodily force was very high, with the former being observed often. This form of aggression was often used to take another child’s toy at the simulated birthday party. In conclusion, some children naturally use aggression at a young age and some do not.

The presentation of the Frequency of Aggressive Responses by Children in Control Groups and Those Exposed to Aggressive and Non-aggressive Models shows a prominent difference in how children react to certain models, or lack of thereof. The research shows that children shown aggressive model treatment showed approximately 95% of aggressive responses, whereas the non-aggressive model group only showed 40% of aggressive responses. This shows that children who are presented with cartoon models are more likely to repeat such behaviour, although they are not taking part in the behaviour, or receiving a reward for repeating the behaviour. This study shows how the use of media can be used as a tool for helping individuals learn without

I wish In the discussion of violent video games and toys, one controversial issue has been that violent games and toys are known to be a negative influence on children and young adults, and could potentially cause them to become bad people in our society. On the one hand, many sociologists, psychologist, and concerned parents argue that violent video games and toys are a main contributor to violent behavior in children. Most of these people say that children are very impressionable, and more than likely to develop a negative attitude or involve themselves in negative activities after they have played with a violent video game and/or played with a form a war toy, or some sort of toy gun. On the other hand, many people contend that violent behavior is not learned from video games, it is developed through a child’s observation of the people around them. So if a child sees their parent or friend having a negative attitude then they will display the same attitude. Others even maintain that violent video games and toys are a great outlet for children to express and already present frustration. My own view is that violent video games do not have a major impact on children and that there is no need to ban any sort of video game or toy.

Meaning a violent influence like fighting, cursing, and weapons can have a negative effect on the child’s behavior. When young boys watch violent television, the aggressive behavior that it may influence, will only contribution to the increased aggression in their future. The movies, television and even video games can influence aggressive behavior depending on the child.