Children Development

1139 Words3 Pages

We have all seen ads on the TV, in a newspaper, in a magazine, or on a billboard telling us about how their product is so good for our children’s brain development, language development, emotional development, etc. These ads tell us what we want to hear, that we can help our children in every way possible with their help, but are they telling us the truth? Does their product really beneficially help our children developmentally or are they just trying to get us to spend our money. One of these products is called a Kimochis. They are a plush doll, they come in many different styles one is like a bug another like a rose. They come with small pillows that have a feeling, like happy, sad, silly, etc., and on the other side of the pillow there is a face that parallels to the feeling. An example would be if the word is happy the face on the other side would be a smiling face. The age group they are focused on is 3-6 years. They claims to be constructive for developing emotional intelligence, that they can help children understand the difference between bullying and “normal unkind interactions” (Kimochis, 2011), and that these plushies can help young children help manage their emotions.
During the third year of life children start to show more of a consciousness for emotions. In Fogel (2009), he says “children develop more complex forms of pretending.” This kind of pretend play is an important part of the child developing, they can start to face failure and come out on top. This is a way that children can have cognitive growth and learn, it allows children to become more familiar with different social aspects of life. They can pretend to be a doctor, mother, father, pet owner, etc. This is a way for them to become more socially competent...

... middle of paper ...

... they to enhance their child’s learning. I think that it could be very beneficial. Some questions that would be open for further research on this toy would be whether it actually can prevent bullying. Can recognizing facial expressions and knowing what they mean prevent bullying? Can it teach children to differentiate between just unkind emotions and bullying?

Works Cited

Benefits of the Kimochis | Kimochis Education. (n.d.). Kimochis Education. Retrieved February 10, 2014, from http://kimochiseducation.tumblr.com/benefits

Fogel, A. (2009). Twenty-Four to Thirty-Six Months. Infancy Infant, Family and Society (pp. 527-547). N.Y.: Sloan Publishing.

Székely, E., Tiemeier, H., Arends, L. R., Jaddoe, V. V., Hofman, A., Verhulst, F. C., & Herba, C. M. (2011). Recognition of facial expressions of emotions by 3-year-olds. Emotion, 11(2), 425-435. doi:10.1037/a0022587

Open Document