In the front hall my school from Pre-Kindergarten though 12th Grade, there was a bronze plaque in the front hall that we saw every day. It included a famous bit of poetry by Gartland Rice: “For when the One Great Scorer comes / To write against your name. He marks—not that you won or lost— / But how you played the game.”

We saw this every day (It was unavoidable.), and while we didn’t stop and ponder the message with great regularity, its message certainly seeped into us—as was intended. Effort, integrity and sportsmanship were drilled into us not just by a passive message on a wall but by a faculty who knew that while winning in whatever we did was sometimes out of our control no matter how hard we tried; how we engaged with the process of everything we did (playing the game) is what makes all the difference.

All this month at Time to Play, we’re celebrating Family Game Night, and we have great suggestions for games you and your family will love playing. As Jim Silver notes, games provide a great family bonding experience, and he notes people play to win. Of course they do. No one likes to lose, but you can’t have a winner without a loser. And this is where it becomes important to acknowledge the importance of how you play the game.

There are thousands of games out there, but at the end of the day, they really break down into two categories: games of chance and games of skill. Both present amazing learning opportunities for kids.

Games of chance—Candy Land, Chutes and Ladders, Uno and so forth—depend solely on the luck of the draw or the roll of the dice. Because these are random, the game is different every time it’s played. The fascination and the fun comes from the twists and turns over which a player has very little control. What children learn in these games is that sometimes outcomes in life are unpredictable and certainly uncontrollable. Today’s loss will probably be tomorrow’s win. The fun is in playing and interacting with others. Teaching kids to be a good loser is as important as being a good winner. No one really wants to play with a sore loser or an obnoxious winner. (When they get into higher mathematics, they can learn that what we like to call “luck” is merely statistical probability in action. If the same two people play the same game over enough time, they are likely to win 50 percent of the time. But that’s a conversation for another day.)

Games of skill—Blokus, Othello, Chess, Scrabble, etc.—combines elements of chance with strategy. A player can get better at these over time. My personal favorite game is the card game Bridge. There is always the element of luck in how the cards are dealt, but learning the ins and outs of the games, bidding strategies and so forth can be the play of a lifetime. Games of skill teach kids to keep trying and to know that it takes time and perseverance to develop the skills that can lead to winning.

On everything from testing to performance, there is such an emphasis on winning that it can be demoralizing to kids and prevent them from trying. The cliché, “keep your eyes on the prize,” can be inspiring, but it’s also important to accept that kids are going to stink at things when they first start out. You don’t become a Chess master overnight, or a star athlete or musician. There are also elements of chance in life. For instance, I was never a gifted athlete. I did my best, but I never came up to the level of my classmates who were naturally talented. In fact, kids and coaches consistently ridiculed me for my total lack of athletic skill. Not easy. However, I was a talented musician and outshone my peers who seemed to work harder without getting the same results.

That brings up one of the most important lessons we get from games: Play the hand you’re dealt. By working within the framework of “what is,” we can learn to be the best we can be. Some things may come easily and some not so much. But if we can set goals and work steadily towards them, that is what makes a rich life. Teaching our kids that winning is a bonus but never guaranteed is as essential as teaching them that if they don’t fully engage in the game, the chances of winning are non-existent.

I ran my first marathon when I was in my 30s. I did not win, of course, but I had a respectable time in the middle of the pack. It took over a year to train, and sometimes I wanted to give up, but I wanted to prove something to myself. I learned that I could do something I believed I couldn’t, and that made all the difference.

Play Categories: Advice, Experiences

My friend and fellow blogger Lenore Skeanzy, whose wonderful blog is Free Range Kids, has been quoting Mark Twain on the risks of riding trains in 1871. It’s fascinating and entertaining reading.

Twain was talking about the low statistical probability of being killed in a train wreck, though at the time conventional wisdom within the country was that train travel should be avoided as unsafe. Twain’s point was that despite the risk, the literal chances of being hurt or killed in a train wreck were very low.

Today, we know that your chances of being killed in an airline crash are statistically less than a car crash. Still more people fear flying than driving. This is in part because when we drive we are in more control and feel that that shields us. As much as we might understand physics and engineering, part of our brains has not evolved enough to accept that hurtling through the sky, six miles above the ground in a metal tube is even possible—let alone safe. Of course, there’s risk, but for most people who fly, it is acceptable risk. If planes fell out of the sky every day, it would be a different story. I once sat next to a mechanical engineer on a flight out of Denver who was absolutely panicked about flying. Even he knew his fear didn’t make sense, but it was just that: an irrational fear.

Now, fear is not always bad. It’s our built-in early warning system. The problem is that it gets ugly and unmanageable where fear meets ego. In other words, parents who read about terrible tragedies about children instantly project themselves into it. As a result, kids are being raised to be afraid of their environments, cautious about anything they don’t know and, in too many cases, risk averse. We have gone from a country that relied on its communities and the people within them to provide support, context and stability to isolated pockets of individuals fearful of anyone and anything we don’t know.

I was recently at an event with many people I didn’t know personally, but who were all there for the same reason and under the same organization. One would think that the presumption of safety within this group would apply. Instead, when a 5-year-old girl walked over to me to proudly show me the art project she’d made, her mother, having looked away for a moment, raced over, grabbed her daughter and told her she was “very bad” for talking to people she didn’t know, and instructed me not to talk to her child. Not surprisingly, her daughter looked like she was on the brink of tears. This drama played out over about 90 seconds, and I wasn’t even an active participant. In fact, I was irrelevant, and I never said a word. It was the mother’s fear that drove the drama, and it overwhelmed her judgment and the facts.

Sadly, “drama” is the operative word here, and I sat there wondering what this lovely little girl’s experience was going to be as she grew up if this was her daily experience. If every unknown situation is catastrophic and dangerous, how will this little girl learn to make distinctions between situations for herself when mom isn’t on the scene?

Children need age-appropriate risk at all stages of their lives. How else do they know what they’re capable of? It’s a huge risk to pull oneself up and start walking. It’s a risk to go to nursery school and suddenly be with other kids. It’s a risk to ride a bike, or a skateboard. It’s a risk to take the SATs. Any activity, any choice where the outcome is unknown is a risk. And risks are life threatening to a greater or lesser degree. Teaching children to take appropriate risks is how we help them to grow. And, most importantly they need to fail. I love watching kids skateboard because, with no parental authority around, they know they won’t hit each trick, but I love the process as failure ultimately leads to success, and success can become mastery. Children need this process.

Of course common sense applies. But shutting ourselves into egocentric cocoons of fear without acknowledging reality is not the answer. Every success has its genesis in one thing: a calculated risk. Striking the balance between rationality and risk is one of the most valuable gifts we can give our kids.

Play Categories: Advice, Experiences, Opinions

Last week was Jim’s turn to be in Hong Kong, this week it’s mine. The trade show here is the second largest in the world, and it’s where the “toy year” officially starts. Many manufacturers started showing things privately in October, but here in Hong Kong at the amazing Convention Centre that juts magnificently into the harbor from Hong Kong Island, or in the hundreds of showrooms and hotel suites on the mainland, this is where the toys you’ll be trying to find ten short months from now start to take shape.

Many of the executives and designers have been here since just after the New Year. They work with buyers and have easy access to the factories in China—a couple of hours away by train. The suggested changes that are devised in these meetings can quickly be implemented and new models delivered in a few days’ time.

One of the big things everyone is talking about is cost—how to give consumers more value for their money. That’s great news for anyone buying toys, but it can cause headaches for the companies trying to meet that challenge. For example, I spent an hour today with a small toy company that has a line of awesome products that will be unveiled in the U.S. this year. (Sorry, specific details are under wraps.) I talked to the lead inventor, who has a Ph.D. in robotics, and he told me that it took six months to figure out how to get a toy to run for a long time on AA batteries. Why even bother trying to do something like that? Well, it allows the toy to be sold at an affordable price and to perform at a level that won’t disappoint kids. Sounds like a pretty good reason to me.

And this show is big, there are more than 2,000 companies exhibiting from 46 countries. And there are thousands of buyers here from all over the world, all of them hoping that they will find a market for their toys.

It’s a lot to try to see it all in only a few days!

But this is truly where the toy year starts. A lot of people in the toy business are on the road for the first few months of the year non-stop. At the end of this week, many of the companies leave here and head for the Nuremburg toy show in Germany—the largest toy fair in the world. It’s so big, they have one huge convention hall that would easily cover the space of five football fields devoted only to model trains. (Model trains are big in Europe, still.) There the manufacturers will show their toys again, with some improvements.

Another company I spoke with today has an amazing electronics product. (Sorry, still top secret.) They showed it to me and said that by next week when they head to Nuremburg they hope to have the next round of development complete.

After Nuremburg comes the London toy show and finally, New York. Even then, though, the work isn’t done. After all the shows, manufacturers still have to work out details such as how to manufacture the toys, and how much it will cost the retailers to buy them and how much they can sell them for. It’s a long process that ends with final meetings and the hope that after all is said and done the retailers will begin placing orders and production can start. In many cases, orders are finalized by the end of March or the beginning of April, so the toys can be made in time to spend 6 weeks being shipped from Asia and be on the shelf at the beginning of the holiday shopping season.

It’s also a very risky business because there’s no guarantee that a toy will make it through the process and thousands of dollars—or more—may go down the tubes. A toy might ultimately be too expensive. Or there could be too many other things like it on the market or… There are lots of reasons, and many of them might not be that obvious. However, every once in a while, I’ll stumble across a toy as I’m roaming the shows that makes me scratch my head and say, “What were they thinking?” My favorite right here in Hong Kong two years ago was a two-foot-tall purple plush gorilla that was operated by remote control and played “Johnny, Be Good.” I guess somebody thought it was a good idea.

If this year is like the past, though, the good ideas will far outweigh the bad, and at the end of the toy year for us, there will be tons of excitement for you. Stay tuned!

Play Categories: Experiences, Industry News

By Chris Byrne (Follow me on twitter)

Last Sunday night, I was in Chicago, and Michigan Avenue was lined with people there to watch a parade—and participate in the “official” opening of Chicago’s Shopping season.

For the rest of the nation, that begins the Friday after Thanksgiving—or so-called “Black Friday.” While it would be fun to say the name comes from my mood trying to navigate stores on one of the most crowded shopping days of the year, the real derivation of the term comes from financials. The Friday after Thanksgiving was traditionally the day that retailers went from being in the red to profitable—or in the black.

If you’re breathing, you can’t miss all the hype this year. Stores opening extra early (Toys “R” Us is opening at midnight.) and all the hype about “door buster” specials. It’s no surprise that everyone is a little hopped up about this. It’s been a dismal year for retailers, and shoppers who have held back all year are in a mood to buy.

But do you have to be out in a cold parking lot the day after the holiday? To me, the notion of getting through a holiday and then leaping into shopping is horrific. The odds of me getting one of the 50 deeply discounted TVs or appliances or computers or toys are so low that it’s not worth it. I start getting jumpy just thinking about it. That, however, is just me.

I’ve been surveying shoppers about their Black Friday plans both in person and online, and the views are pretty much evenly split. For every person like me who hates battling for sales (though I will be visiting stores that day in LA to see how toy sales are going), there are people for whom Black Friday is a family tradition. They anticipate the fun of getting up early and waiting in the cold. For them, it’s like a sporting event. They thrive on the crowds and the energy. As one woman told me, “I’ve done most of my shopping, but the holiday doesn’t really start for me till I feel the excitement of being in the stores. I wouldn’t be the first to posit that shopping can induce a drug-like state.

There are deals to be found, to be sure, and those deals will not be going to me, but I’m happy for the other people who will get them. We all pay in different ways. I’ll pay a few dollars more for things because I want to avoid the crunch. Others will pay with their time and energy to try to score the items they want. Happily, we both win. When choices are involved, people usually pay the prices they want to pay.

My sense, though, is that deals will be going on all season. Right now Amazon and Wal-Mart are engaged in a tremendous price war, which can only be good news for shoppers as all retailers compete for the estimated $437.6 billion that will be spent this holiday season, according to the National Retail Federation. So, it’s possible that we all may save a bit.

This is definitely a live-and-let-live situation. I don’t get the people who love being up at 3:00 a.m. any more than they can understand how I could miss the fun. From my perspective, we both win.

Have a wonderful holiday—just the way you like it.

Play Categories: Experiences, Opinions, holidays

By Jim Silver (Follow me on twitter)

You’re looking for a Zhu Zhu pet or a Mindflex and you can’t find one anywhere. It’s at the top of your child’s wish list, and you need to come up with this toy(this is where we need to define “need vs. want”). What should you do?

1. Bounce from store to store until you find it. This usually ends up in failure. If you’re going to try this method, go to the stores that carry the most toys. You can try calling ahead, but that doesn’t usually work, especially for large stores. Then try some smaller local toy stores, as sometimes you get lucky.
2. Get to know the sales help. They often know when the next shipments are arriving. And be nice! Acting crazy, rude or demanding won’t get you any good tips or information. The next NICE customer will get the tip – Always be nice!
3. Buy a different toy and a small gift card. Gift cards extend the holiday season, and allow a child to spend fun time walking through a toy store. For a child, visiting a toy store with a small gift card is an outing; they can spend hours there.
4. Go online. You’re already online reading this, start hitting the web sites that sell toys. A search for a specific toy will usually bring up several different sites. You could always go to eBay and see if you want to buy and pay now at a premium, or wait till later.

Play Categories: Advice, Experiences, products

By Christopher Byrne (Follow me on Twitter)

“If the music is too loud, you’re too old.” Have you heard that? It’s a supposedly humorous comment reflecting the thoughts of young people regarding the, ahem, “elderly” (30-something and above). But it’s not funny: noise-induced hearing loss in children and youth is a serious problem—and getting worse.

iPods (and similar MP3 players) are everywhere today, and when not used safely, they contribute to noise induced hearing loss, the second most common form of hearing loss today. That’s very bad news. But there’s also good news: Noise-induced hearing loss (NIHL) is 100 percent preventable.

Let’s look at some present facts in the United States. The National Centre for Environmental Health has recently revealed that 12.5 percent of children between the ages of six- and nine-years-old have a noise-induced hearing loss. That’s 5.2 million children, which is an astounding number of children, according to Ellen Rhoades, (Ed. S. and Cert. AVT), to have a problem previously thought to occur mostly in adults. Further, Ellen reports a University of Oregon study showing that 16 percent of 6- to 19-year olds have early signs of hearing loss at the range most readily damaged by loud sounds. When we add the fact that 2.4 million people between the ages of eighteen and thirty-four have hearing loss, you can see the trend—the problem is growing and at a very rapid rate.

What has caused the increase of NIHL in such a short time, you may wonder?

A leading factor appears to be exposure to damagingly loud sound over time as delivered through personal music devices set at “high” volume.

The toy industry and related agencies have monitored sound producing toys for a number of years now in an effort to reduce any potential harm to hearing that could be caused while using these toys inappropriately. For example, the European Standard on toy safety (BS EN 71-1) was adopted in the UK in 1998 and specifies noise limits for different types of toys. Likewise, in Europe, iPods are legally capped for volume at 100 decibels.

Currently, there is no U.S. limit on the volume level of personal music devices. Children, particularly, and youngsters in general, may not be aware of hearing damage occurring while using personal music devices because the loss of hearing is gradual and there are few pronounced early symptoms. With prolonged exposure, the hearing loss is also permanent.

Here’s what happens. The human ear is divided into three parts from the external ear to the middle and then inner ear. Sound is collected in the external ear, converted to mechanical energy by the eardrum and small bones of the middle ear, then delivered to the inner ear where it is translated into electrical energy to be transported to the brain in the form of nerve impulses. The hearing loss we are concerned with occurs in the inner ear. Prolonged exposure to loud sound (or an intense burst of loud sound such as that of a firecracker) can permanently damage the hair cells located in the inner ear that respond to sound frequencies (pitch) and translate them into the electrical impulses then sent to the brain. This damage usually occurs in what is perceived as the higher pitch sounds within speech. The result is hearing loss that makes it difficult to understand speech or to hear the sibilant sounds such as s-, sh-, th-, ch-, etc., as example. Once the cells are damaged or destroyed, this ability to perceive/understand conversational level speech cannot be restored because the damage is permanent.

Think of this. We detect normal, conversational speech at a level of 60 decibels (perceived as loudness); a whisper in quiet conditions at 30 to 40 decibels (dB). O dB is considered the lowest level at which sound is detectable and 140 dB is equivalent to standing on an airport runway next to a jet taking off. It’s only at the more intense levels, such as the jet takeoff, that loud sound might be perceived as painful. Hearing damage can occur beginning at about 80 dB with sustained exposure over a period of hours, and possibly at a lower level in infants. Stereo headphones set at 100 dB (the cap in Europe) can harm ears (hearing) in two hours. One study of portable compact players found that a high volume setting ranged upward from 91 to 121 dB. That’s louder than a rock concert, a sandblaster or a car horn delivered directly into the ear.

In a nutshell, any noise level that is “loud” enough to interfere with speech causing people to need to raise their voices to be heard is a level loud enough to cause hearing damage over time.

So, back to personal music players and similar listening devices. What should we do?

With children, it is important to limit the amount of time set aside for listening to short periods and with adult monitoring of loudness level. (The ears, after all, need time to rest and recover from stimulation just as we do from other forms of exercise.) It is also important, we feel, not to use earphones that fit inside the ear canal with younger children. (Earphones inside the ear actually increase the volume by up to almost 10 decibels above the same sound signal delivered through external speakers or even headphones.) Also, because very young children are more prone to middle ear infections than older children and adults, it’s best to avoid inserting earphones into the external canal and risk sound intensity damage to hearing due to an existing temporary middle ear hearing loss. Besides that, it’s much more difficult for the adult to monitor if the child chooses to increase the volume of the device when using earphones.

For young children, we strongly advocate adult-monitored listening through a standard external speaker system, or over-the-ear headphones if necessary. With older children, we recommend education regarding hearing damage and adult guidance as to what is likely “too loud.”

Don’t get us wrong. iPods and MP3 players, just as gaming devices, are fun! And what increasingly style- or trend-conscious child all the way down to preschool isn’t clamoring to have one? We certainly love ours.

We’re simply saying that noise-induced hearing loss is a very real and increasing problem. Once the damage is done it can’t be undone. So we “too old” adults need to say, “If the music’s too loud… it’s too loud! It’s up to us to help children of all ages avoid damaging something so precious as the ability to hear.

Play Categories: Advice, Experiences, Opinions

By Jim Silver (Follow me on Twitter)

As a parent of three children, one of our favorite family activities is going to the movies. When the kids were younger, choosing what movies to see was pretty easy; we only took them to G-rated films.

As our kids got a little older, things became a little more complicated. We introduced PG films into the repertoire, but we wanted to make sure there wouldn’t be any nightmares after seeing a film. When they get a little older it’s a little tougher: what PG-13 movies are appropriate for kids to see? I was always shocked and amazed to see the movies parents brought there kids to see. I even “messed up” once bringing my two oldest kids to see Austin Powers in Goldmember when they were 11 and12 (I took a lot of grief from my wife for that one, although, in my defense, almost every other kid in their classes also saw it.)

What movies did my kids like when they were younger? Almost everything we took them to. Not until they reached they age of 10 did they discriminate and start to really compare films. And some of those films we had to sit through were just plain torture for a parent.

Unfortunately, there weren’t too many places that I knew of to find reviews with the information I wanted. I didn’t care if it was a great screenplay, didn’t care about the cinematography, or costume design. I wanted reviews that told me whether my kids would like the film, what age and gender would like it better, and, as a parent do I need my iPod in the theater as distraction. Also, I wanted to know if there was content that a parent might find objectionable.

With that in mind, we have started a Family Film Review section in TimetoPlaymag.com that will hopefully answer all of these questions in short, concise reviews with a respected movie critic, Cynthia Fuchs, who understands what parents are looking for in a film. We hope this makes choosing what movies to take your kids to a whole lot simpler.

Play Categories: Advice, Experiences

By Jim Silver (Follow me on Twitter)

No spoilers here!

I took my three teenage daughters to Transformers screening. Two of them liked it better than first movie. It was non-stop action from the moment it started! I already need to see it again for all the little things I missed.  My girls were questioning why Megan Fox is always scantily dressed, but Shia never removes his shirt. LOVE Sam’s parents, the Twin Bots are hilarious, and Optimus Prime rules! (Although my youngest will tell you Bumblebee rules)

Check out some of the movies hottest toys.

Play Categories: Experiences, Industry News, Opinions

By Matt Nuccio

With the release of the trailer for Rock Band’s new Beatles Rock Band I’ve become all fired up. As a child of former hippies the Beatles where a staple in our house hold. Till this day they are the band to which I measure all other bands. It is if they are water, the basic necessity for life and all other bands are just flavors added to water. As a parent now I find myself playing Beatles songs for my son. And just like his father and his father before him he has taken to the fab four. Below is a list, in no particular order, of a few our favorite child friendly Beatles songs.

1) Yellow Submarine
Written by John Lennon, Paul McCartney and Donavan for Ringo to Sing on the 1966 Revolver Album. It tells the tale of an old sailers travels through the land of submarines. In 1968 the song was used as the theme for animated movie of the same name. The film told a story about the fab fours travels in Submarine Land. Perhaps one of the Beatles greatest sing alongs.

2) Octopus’s Garden
Only the second song ever written by Ringo Starr. It took 32 takes for the Beatles to finally get the sound the way they wanted it. Luckily for us they got it right. Great fun both children and parents alike. It was originally released on the alum Abby Road (1969)

3) Rocky Raccoon
This tale of a lost love set in the old west was primarily written by Paul McCartney and appears on The Beatles (“The White Album”) (1968)

4) Cry Baby Cry
Based on an old nursery rhyme that John Lennon remembered from his childhood, Cry Baby Cry is cute bedtime song for any child. It is the last track on the album The Beatles (“The White Album”) (1968)

5) When I’m Sixty-Four
This Vaudeville styled ditty from the seminal 1967 Sgt Peppers Lonely Heart Club band tells the tale of young love looking forward to growing old with one another.

6) Your Mother Should Know
Written for a dance sequence in 1968 film Magical Mystery Tour, Paul McCartney crafted this tune to have an old fashion feel to appeal both parents and teens like.

7) The Continuing Story of Bungalow Bill
The story of a young man full of Bravado who tells exaggerated tales of hunting his excruciations.  This is cute song has theme of morality with a taste of witty sarcasm. Based on a incident that occurred on their famed trip to vist to Marta Rishi in India. This song was originally released on the album The Beatles (“The White Album”) (1968)

8 ) Hey Bulldog
This fun and cheerful piece was written for the 1969 Yellow Submarine fiim. This is one the few Beatles song to be structured around a piano riff and one of the last to have been performed by all four Bealtes at the same time in the studio. Children love it for all of it’s barking and howling. I love it for it’s great guitar and piano riffs.

9) For the Benefit of Mr Kite
Written for the seminal 1967 Sgt Peppers Lonely Heart Club band. John Lennon took inspiration from a  nineteenth century circus poster he had hanging on his wall. Full of swirling sounds and high flying excitement it creates a fantastic circus atmosphere.

10) Blackbird
Musically Inspired by Bach’s Bourrée in E minor, Paul McCartney wrote the lyrics to this song as a response to escalating racial issues in the U.S. The term bird actually does not refer to our feathered friends but is used as British slang for girl. But even without it’s social relevance it is family friend piece that children and adults can love. It was released on the album The Beatles (“The White Album”) (1968)

11) Good Night
Written by John Lennon as a lullaby for his son Julian. This song can lull even the crankiest child to sleep (that would be me). It was originally released on the album The Beatles (“The White Album”) (1968)

Of course there are many many great Beatles songs. This list barely touches the surface. What Beatles songs do you and your family enjoy? I’m curious to know.

Play Categories: Advice, Experiences, Opinions