The Impact of Smart Toys on Children’s Psychological Development

Introduction

Smart toys and robots are becoming ubiquitous in children’s homes. They have many positive effects on children’s psychological development, however, it is crucial to understand how smart toys and robots impact children’s psychological development. Kids are easily excited by new things in the outer world, however, they cannot evaluate knowledge and discern good from wrong, and they are cognitively and physically immature. Intelligent toys as a powerful social force, their impact on children’s psychological development can not be ignored. Based on this, this article will systematically sort out and review the current situation of the use of intelligent toys in children’s living environments and its impact on children’s psychological development, providing certain references and guidance for children’s mental health development.

The Positive Effects of Smart Toys on Children’s Psychological Development

Proper using of smart toys can be beneficial to kids’ psychological development in many ways, which are mainly the following five aspects. Let’s explore them one by one. 

1. Motor Skills

Experts believe that psychology, intelligence, and thinking originate from the actions of the subject. Young children make sense of the world by developing gross motor skills and fine motor skills. Children can improve motor skills in the process of using smart toys. The interaction with smart toys allows children to operate through gestures such as tapping, spreading or kneading fingers, sliding, drawing circles, etc., which exercises the fine movements of children’s hands. Sports smart toys can fully mobilize the arms, legs and torso, and other parts of the body, develop large and small muscle groups, exercise children’s body reaction ability and balance coordination ability.

2. Speech and Cognition

Early childhood is a critical period for speech development. Children can learn nursery rhymes, foreign languages, and stories through the educational function of smart toys, which helps to increase children’s vocabulary so that children can increase knowledge and broaden their horizons. Compared with traditional picture book reading, children’s interaction with voice dialogue intelligent toys or educational robots can improve children’s learning initiative and participation, cultivate their language organization ability when speaking, and maximize the benefits of children’s language learning. In addition, smart products have a positive effect on reading skills. Intelligent toys play the role of scaffolding in the process of knowledge construction, which can improve children’s cognitive level. The “Toy Learning Tools” project operated by Guangzhou University, which aims to study high-tech toys that teach and play, has designed and developed smart robots that can be used to learn the basics of programming, which increases young children’s motivation to learn, but also fosters hands-on skills and innovative thinking.

Children can develop good connections, learn how to express their emotions and comprehend the sentiments of others by interacting with smart toys or smart robots.

3. Emotions

Smart toys attract children with their interesting interaction and pleasant sound effects, fun, and so on so that children can get happiness and other positive emotional experiences when using them. Intelligent robot toys also accompany children to reduce their sense of loneliness, especially when the parents are not around the child, to avoid children because of loneliness having negative emotions. The game mechanism and gameplay of intelligent toys are more challenging for children, and the level Settings of different difficulties are conducive to stimulating children’s good curiosity and interest and obtaining a sense of accomplishment in the process of constantly challenging and crossing.

4. Social Behavior

Intelligent toys show children various communication scenarios through interaction and other forms, and children can learn some interpersonal communication knowledge and prosocial behaviors through imitation, to better carry out peer communication. Smart toys can be a stepping stone for children to form a peer relationship. In the game interaction, children need to constantly communicate, communicate, and negotiate with their partners, and adjust the next action and reaction at any time.

Smart toys that engage kids to interact are more and more common nowadays. For example, Ruko Robots are designed to provide entertainment and companionship engagingly and interactively. The robots can tell stories, play music, and even dance, encouraging kids to do it together. Touching the robot’s head is a very loving action, it changes expression when you touch it and responds to you cutely, making it an absolute good companion for kids.

5. Imagination and Creativity.

Whether it’s a dance party, a music concert, or an outer space adventure, smart toys can create many scenarios based on kids’ imagination.

Do you recall the countless imaginative scenarios you created with toys during your childhood?

Going with smart toys and robots, with their various feature engagingly and interactively, your imagination will surely be taken to new heights like never before.

Reminders for Smart Toys Use

Parents of young children should view smart products rationally and guide their children to use them rationally. Parents cannot just give smart toys to their children to play with for the sake of temporary worry, and then ignore them. Parents must first choose appropriate toys, applications, etc. for their children. To shape healthy behaviors and usage patterns, when children use smart products, parents should pay attention to their children’s viewing posture and whether the content they watch is appropriate or healthy from time to time. When young children are accidentally exposed to violence and other harmful content, parents should explain and comment appropriately so that their children can distinguish between fiction and reality, and distinguish right from wrong. Parents and children jointly formulate rules about the usage time of smart products and strictly abide by them, which can cultivate children’s rules and regulations.

Preschool teachers should give full play to the auxiliary role of smart products in teaching and guiding children to use smart products correctly. Kindergarten integrates artificial intelligence into various activities of early childhood education. For example, it introduces intelligent products such as educational robots to assist education and teaching, which can increase the fun and intelligence of courses and provide personalized learning guidance for young children. In addition, offering courses on intelligent robots allows children to assemble robot shapes based on their understanding of robots, which can help children master the enlightenment knowledge of artificial intelligence and cultivate their information literacy and scientific inquiry spirit.

In Conclusion

It is crucial to provide proper guidance for children in terms of smart toys and robot use and make sure the influence of intelligent toys on children’s psychological development is always positive.

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