Last Friday, we brought Rayyan to Toys R Us after his afternoon class and bought for him a Hero Factory robot. I have been wanting to buy this robot for Rayyan since we went to KL and now that there's an irresistible offer ($10.90 from $19.90), I grabbed one for him! It is pretty easy to fix this one and even though Rayyan doesn't know how to fix the robot yet, I thought that it will be great for him to observe his Daddy and help Daddy fix the robot.
Anyway, we went for dinner after we left Toys R Us and at the dinner table, Rayyan quickly passed the box to Daddy...
Rayyan : Help me open.
After Daddy removed the pieces from the box...
Rayyan : Help me fix.
I was glad that he was pretty enthusiastic and requested pretty nicely. After the robot was fixed, I noticed that he was able to move the arms and legs and I taught him how to get the robot to fly and to pretend to shoot. He seems to be enjoying himself :)
Checking out the instruction manual :)
Fixing the robot with Daddy
Ta-da!!!! Happy with his new robot ;))
Now that I am reflecting on this, I think that I should have more pretend play with him, like get him to talk like a robot and get the robot to fight with another robot. And oh yes, talking about fighting, I suddenly remember a conversation that I had with Hubby about some mothers who refuse to allow their children to play with any toy guns or toy swords (even small ones) for fear that the children will become violent.
I understand the mother's point of view, that the children might not understand that it's only pretend play and copy this pretend play in real life. Well, actually, I am unsure about this myself. I just feel that playing with robots and toy guns and toy swords is great pretend play. After all, boys have been playing with all these toys since a long, long time ago and they still play with these toys now. Even if I don't allow Rayyan to play, he will see it on television or see other boys play with all these boy stuffs.
So I am following my instinct here. I hope all these pretend play will allow him to be more imaginative and I will try my best to curb any signs of violence that arise from these pretend play and make him understand. But, will he understand? I hope so....
