This year's batch of letters to Santa are so fraught with danger, they might as well be stuffed with anthrax and smeared with antibiotic-resistant germs. Beware the lead paint-covered Dora backpack, the building set with little magnets that can choke a kid, the innocent-looking rubber duckie made with hormone-disrupting plastic softeners. Ho! Ho! Ho!
Before you hit the toy store, check out the annual toy guide put out by Teachers Resisting Unhealthy Children's Entertainment, or TRUCE, a national educators' group based in Somerville. TRUCE doesn't just want parents to buy their kids safe toys—it also urges them to consider whether those toys enhance their kids' lives. (Hint: if it involves blasting other kids with a laser gun or teaches little girls the importance of makeup application, it probably doesn't.)
"Play is essential to children's healthy development and learning. Children use play to actively construct knowledge, meet social/emotional needs, and acquire life skills," TRUCE's toy guide notes. But the passive entertainment that's become so popular—video games, DVDs and the like—works against that development, and too often comes with messages that aren't exactly ideal for young minds.
The toy guide offers suggestions for toys that promote the kinds of play kids should be engaging in: dramatic play, arts, physical play. It also includes "toys and toy trends to avoid," with a heavy focus on violence or sexist messages (we mean you, Bratz "Magic Make-up" game), or that are too mature or scary for the kids they're pitched to. And it warns parents away from so-called "learning toys" that research shows have no real positive effects.
To see the toy guide or get more information on TRUCE, go to www.truceteachers.org. Massachusetts Public Interest Research Group, meanwhile, offers toy safety guidelines at www.masspirg.org.
