Monday, December 03, 2007

Sign of the Times

I remember when this toy had a rotary-phone dial on it. No longer. I guess that's a motor skill kids just don't need any more.

My question is when the toy makers will start adding some new functions to the panel, like a mouse scroll wheel, pinch-open icon, or thumbprint scanner. What motor skills do kids need now that they didn't need in the past?

1 comment:

dgm said...

Opening beer bottles comes to mind. (Our days of the old pop-top are long gone now that we're classy folk.) Aside from that, kids need to know how to type on a keyboard at a much younger age than we did.

I wouldn't say that kids "need" gross motor skills any more than in the past, but certainly there is a greater emphasis today on pushing kids into organized sports at a much younger age--and with a greater sense of parental urgency--than in the past. When I was a little whipper, sports-related games were mostly spontaneously organized neighborhood street games.