Toys to Promote Skills

I have a guest post up today over at Mommy Shorts, about toys that are likely to appeal to princess-obsessed little girls (and/or the grown ups who will only buy your daughter "girl toys") while still building skills that are important for future success in math and science, like spatial reasoning, pattern recognition and matching, and logic. Go check it out. As an added bonus, you'll get to see how wonderfully concise my posts would be if I had an editor. (Seriously, Ilana did a great job tightening up my post and making it fit better with her site.) While you're there, check out some of the regular posts. They are funny! I'm particularly partial to the charts, because I love graphs and charts and occasionally feel the need to post a graph, too. Compared to the ones on Mommy Shorts, though, mine are decidedly lacking in production values.

If you're coming over from Mommy Shorts, you know all that, and may be wondering who the heck I am, and why you should listen to me about toys. First of all, welcome! As you can see from my profile blurb, I am a scientist and a techie, and I have two daughters. And that is the extent of my qualifications to discuss toys. I feel strongly about this subject, though, because at least once a year I am told either in person or by some luminary like the President of Harvard or a New York Times science writer that the fact that there are fewer women in science than men can be explained by the fact that men are just innately better at math and science. The evidence does not support that statement, even though it is a widely held belief in our society. This is a classic self-fulfilling statement, and the differences in the toys we give our boys and girls are part of what helps fulfill it. For more on the myths about why there are fewer women in science than men, take a look at this article summarizing an evidence-based talk on the subject. In particular, notice this quote:

"A study published by the National Academy Press entitled “Beyond Bias and Barriers” reported findings on women’s ability, persistence in science, evaluation by peers, and reviewed strategies that effectively kept women in science. By almost all measures there was no difference in ability, the one exception being rotation of 3D objects in space, which seems to be more attributable to childhood play than inborn aptitude."

Which brings us back to toys. If you want to read more about my opinions on princesses, gender stereotyping, and the LEGO Friends controversy, here is a list of posts that cover those topics:

• The post that started it all, in which I first ranted about the lack of princesses in LEGO castles.
• The Princess Are Not the Problem post has more about our capitulation to the princesses and why I no longer worry about it.
• Different Genders, Gender Differences, and How We Handle the Princesses has still more about how we're handling gender stereotypes, including more about the Pink Brain, Blue Brain book.
• And most recently, my review of the LEGO Friends sets... after having actually purchased one and watched my daughter play with it.

If you're wondering if I ever write about anything else, you can read my quick tour of my blog to get an idea of the topics I cover.  I also wrote a 2011 in review post that highlights some of my favorite and most popular posts from last year. If you poke around either of those posts, you'll probably realize that I write about a wide range of things. I know that this lack of focus annoys some potential readers,  since they don't know what to expect when they click through to read a post. But I can't help myself. I am a person, not a brand, and I blog that way.  Luckily, I don't really have any goals about readership levels, nor do I expect to make any money from my blog. Maybe reading the post I wrote about why I blog will give you some idea of what to expect... or maybe not. Either way, thanks for stopping by. If you like what you find, I hope you'll make yourself home and stay awhile, and maybe leave a comment or two. I love meeting new readers!

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Update: I have a follow up post up with some of our favorite gender neutral math/logic promoting toys.