This past weekend in Dallas I had the opportunity to volunteer at the nursery at our church. It was so fun to get to play with the little babies, but maybe not as fun having to change them and listen to them cry. One thing I noticed about these little babies were their very distracting and busy toys that they were playing with. Even their car seats, cradles, and rolling chairs all had a million different knobs, buttons, lights, mirrors, and color.
While I think for a child it might be stimulating for them to have all of these things to look at and discover, I also believe it is contributing to the rapidly increasing number of children being diagnosed with ADD or some form of it. Approximately 1.6 million elementary school-aged children have been diagnosed with ADD (attention deficit disorder) and over 2 million kids in the U.S. take Ritalin, a drug to treat ADD.
When thinking about children's literature I have noticed in my experience of reading to kids and having them read to me that they have an extremely short attention span. Could this be due to the exposure to so many elaborate toys as a child, I kind of think so. There are a lot of studies being done, but no definite answer to this. What ever happened to the days when a child was happy playing with blocks and a teddy bear?
1 comment:
you bring up a good point. It also seems that children are so use to being entertained that they lose a bit of the natural part of learning to discover new things and use their own imagination and creativity
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