FREE Retro Toys Tips - A Positive Effect On Our Children

Growing up in the 1980s, I was lucky enough to own a few fantastic Tamiya radio controlled cars. They were the must have toy at the time and just about everyone I knew had one or at least wanted one. WIth the rise in popularity of computer based entertainment, Tamiya kits became less popular and fell by the wayside. Well, they're back and Tamiya keeps on re-releasing them at a rapid rate, surely fueled by the nostalgic element they install in many a 30+ year old man. It's also having a knock-on effect with the younger generation. Many children are getting their first experience of these fantastic toys, via their fathers, and realising there is more to life than the Playstation and XBox.

But it's not just Tamiya who are at it. Many retro toys have made an appearance over the last few years. We had BigTrak. The programmable space-age truck that would occupy children for hours on end, just so they could get it to move around the living room and dump a tin of beans in front of the settee. BigTrak is a little primitive and even back in the 1980s it was difficult and frustrating to use. Only the most patient and intelligent child would get it to do exactly what they wanted it to do.

Other Brands have been better at moving with the times. Lego has always included technology into its products as it got popular in society. Scalextric moved to digital systems to add another element to its racing systems and modern variations on Meccano have been surfacing for years. But generally there are far less 'hands-on' toys for children these days.

How many children these days know how to change a plug? A lot less I expect than back in the 1980s when other toys and hobbies like Meccano, Lego and Airfix kits where in their hayday. Is it a surprise then that there are less skilled workers around these days? Learning through play is an important element for children and these toys offered a lot more to my generation than just entertainment. They made us knowledgeable about everyday tasks in life, like for example, changing the spark plugs on your first car. How may youngsters these days feel confident doing what seems to me like a very simple task?

Teaching our young children how to be constructive and actually build something with their own hands has got to be a positive thing. Think of an average computer game. They are mostly built around destruction. Is this really what we want our kids to develop around? There's something quite rewarding about making something from scratch with your own hands and seeing the product of your hard work before you. I can't see why our society should be attaching destruction to this feeling of reward via most computer games. It will only have a negative effect on this generation.

So, do we have more responsibility as parents to entertain our children in more creative ways these days? Should we actively choose the toys we buy for our children from an early age with this in mind? There are still enough good products out there if we look hard enough and afterall, being handy isn't nerdy. It's actually quite useful in life.

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