House of Toys

I have never been a fan of electronics for children. We do not have a DVD in the car, even on long trips.  My kids never even played with Leap Frog. Once we received a musical book that repeated letters and spelled words in a loud, droning voice. The book stopped working quickly and then disappeared, mysteriously.

But once I got my iPhone I saw some great educational apps and downloaded them for my son, Eric. My favorite was First Word sampler, in which the user matches a series of letters on the bottom of the screen to ones in a word next to a picture. When Eric answered a few correctly, I thought he could read. Until he got to the word SHIP. After slowly dragging the correct letters up the highlighted word—S, H, I, P—he looked at me and announced with a triumphant smile, “BOAT!”

No matter. As soon as he discovered my Bubble Wrap app and Slingshot Cowboy, the ABCs went out the window. Educational indeed.

My kids’ friends have had their own Gameboys and Nintendos for years but in the same way I refused to buy into the Pokemon epidemic, I just said no. But I felt myself weakening. Just because I’m a decade behind everyone else electronically doesn’t mean my children need to be. Was I hindering them from future job opportunities due to their lack of gaming skills?

So this Christmas I bought both boys their own Nintendo DS, gifts from Santa via Grandpa’s credit card. Eric got “Drawn To Life,” where he creates his own character who somehow ends up naked during parts of the game. Paul got “Star Wars: The Clone Wars.”

I soon realized Eric was not enjoying his as much as I had hoped, even with help from big brother Paul. My stepdaughter finally figured out why: The game was set to German! Poor kid has enough trouble reading English. Now Eric loves it. He is an amazing problem solver, with or without reading.

As I type this, I hear the sounds of the different taps from our respective electronic toys. If only the machines promoted time limits. Perhaps every fifteen minutes a character could say: “I need a break. I’m going to have a healthy snack and then get some fresh air. Bye!”

Nothing’s perfect.