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Comment by jonstewart | Hacker News Reader

I won’t buy my kids electronic toys, anything that makes noise or plays songs. When they’re given to my kids, I take the batteries out after a few days. They lose interest and go back to more imaginative toys, like legos, magnet tiles, marble runs, dress up clothes, crayons and painting, puzzles and games, etc.

The alphabet and counting? Read them books, count things with them.

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My children's favorite pastimes: reading, building stuff with legos, drawing and painting, roughhousing, listening to audiobooks, climbing on a gym rack thingy that we got gifted from a neighbor.

Also: building things out of pillows, blankets, cooking pots and utensils, etc.

Videogames have become a bit of an issue with my oldest one (8). But he seems to spend a lot less time on them than most other boys that age. But he's not happy about it.

My kid: Parents kid 1+

I should put in a base case and one child test. Eh, I'll do it later.

What's "roughhousing", Google gives me answer it should be "fighting"?

Wrestling, play fighting, that kind of thing. Chasing each other around with sticks until someone gets a scraped knee

Image search does a better job explaining it.

The author complains about figurines, matchbox car, Xylophones, tambourines and finger paints.

So, author would complain about your kids toys too.

Yes, they mention those, then go onto electronic toys in depth, and especially teaching the ABCs and numbers, which all seemed pretty inconsistent.

I don’t much care about what the article says. I care about my sanity and my kids playing nicely.

Book wise, I strongly recommend co-reading Richard Scarry books. They are picture books, choc-a-bloc with characters engaged in various activities. You can play “I Spy,” naming games, invent stories, talk about the activities, hypothesize about what will happen next, etc etc etc. The possibilities are pretty much endless. They are hugely advantageous for developing vocabulary, reading skills, and connecting with your child.

https://www.richardscarry.com/

Ebook is more practical when going for vacation and should be pretty harmless (without backlight) for eyes.

I fail to see how is electronic piano not imaginative. I thought also about buying digital microscope, but kids are not interested (yet).

But yeah, my kids play most of the time with blocks/Lego or they use whatever they find to play instead of using toys how they are intended to be used.

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