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September 23, 2004
What Toys To Buy
Interview
with Marianne Szymanski author of the book, Toy
Tips (www.toytips.com)
Mike
Carruthers:
Every kid loves toys, but what's interesting is…
Marianne
Szymanski:
Every generation of kids plays differently. If you
asked families thirty years ago the kinds of toys they had in
their homes you'd find that girls played with dolls probably
up until age even or twelve.
Toy expert
Marianne Szymanski author of the book Toy
Tips…
Now what
we're finding is girls are playing with dolls maybe up until
age about seven. They'll play with them in their rooms alone
beyond age seven but the group play is really decreased and
that's because there's so many other kinds of toys to play with
on the market that have been introduced that weren't available
thirty years ago.
Boys taste
in toys is also predictable.
Boys
seem to like crashing cars from the minute that they can realize
what to do with them. And that's just a natural play pattern.
Boys like to find and play with toys that are more one on one,
building toys. Not aggression toys but toys where they can interact
kind of imaginary interact or interact with another little boy
in a setting, the matchbox car sets train sets. And then you'd
be surprised thinking girls wouldn't like these, but they do.
They just play in a different way. So what we find in our research
is that most toys for children under the age of three are really
for both genders. Starting about age three is when you start
to see the difference between boy play versus girl play. And
that's completely based on a personality basis.
Tomorrow,
Do educational toys really make kids smarter? I'm Mike Carruthers
and that's Something You Should Know.
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