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Santa Claus makes his list and checks it twice.
Local pediatrician Dr. Bernard Ferrer with Terrebonne General Medical Center is telling parents to do the same this holiday season.
Before children send their holiday lists to the North Pole, Ferrer cautions parents to check with Santa to make sure the gifts children receive are in line with the age of each particular child.
“The first thing you’ve got to be aware of is be conscious who you’re getting a gift for as far as what age,” Ferrer said. “Make sure the gift that they get or the present that Santa leaves under the tree is appropriate for that child’s age.”
Ferrer said toys are a primary source of a child’s development, which makes choosing Christmas gifts more critical than what meets the eye.
He said buying gifts to challenge children on par with their stage of mental capacity is a must during every Christmas.
“You want to make sure that you get your little girls and guys appropriate toys and you want to make sure that the toys are challenging them with whatever stage they are going through. If they are just learning to walk, then you want to get them toys that maybe they can push around and play just to kind of help with their developmental skills. With the other kids who are learning to read like your pre-schoolers, you’ll want to get them your activity books and things like that. … You just want to encourage them to stay on par with what’s going on in their current stage of development.”
To make the right decisions about what gifts to or not to buy, Ferrer said parents should study the toy beforehand to get as much information as possible.
He said the advent of Internet sites like Amazon have made complete product details like toy weight and size available, as well as feedback from other parents about whether the gift was a good purchase.
Doing that homework before the purchase is made is what Ferrer believes will lead to an efficient Christmas and a happy child and parent.
“Before you even go to the store, if it’s a fairly new toy, or it’s something you’re not familiar with, I encourage parents to go online,” Ferrer said. “If you go on Amazon.com, there’s a lot of things on their marketplace that are bought and sold and they have extensive reviews on many of their toys. And parents can just do research on that and see because they’ll usually list the ages like 3-5 or something like that. … And they can also see what the parents say. Did they have problems with the toy? Or did they find that maybe the toy was a little bit more advanced for their child or maybe even too simple for their child?”
While doing the pre-purchase homework is one thing, Ferrer also said parents should inspect toys when they come in to see if there are any loose ends that could potentially become dissembled.
He also would recommend “assisting Santa” by keeping tabs on children’s toys from time to time to make sure they are in good condition and all of the parts are whole.
“I’d encourage parents to look at the condition of all of their kid’s toys as they are playing with them,” Ferrer said. “Are they playing with their toys appropriately? Dolls and things like that, pieces will fall off and break. Make sure that things that have batteries that the battery covers are still there that the batteries don’t fall out, because those things provide a choking hazard for any younger kids in the house.”
So keep an eye on that Christmas list and make the best decisions for your children this Christmas.
Even Santa needs a hand sometimes.
“If Santa’s bringing a bike, maybe be sure to ask the elves to throw in a helmet, too,” Ferrer said. “One can never be too safe in the holiday season.”
Christmas gifts should stimulate and challenge your child’s creative thinking, according to pediatrician Dr. Bernard Ferrer, a physician with Terrebonne General Medical Center. Among shopping tips, Ferrer suggests parents check out the Internet for product reviews before buying toys. FILE PHOTO
