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Five Reasons why Little Tikes products are so popularFeb 24 '01 Write an essay on this topic.The Bottom Line These are durable and safe toys that will outlive the harshest treatment by a young child or even Mother Nature! What you should know about Little Tikes Introduction: This is the first of a three-part review on Little Tikes products. In this section, I’ll discuss why Little Tikes toys are so popular with kids and adults. In Part II, I’ll answer every parent’s burning questions, like “How do I clean my Little Tikes toys,” “How can I get replacement parts” and “How can I remove the water from the inside wall of our playhouse?” Finally, in Part III, I’ll show you how to maximize the resale value of your used Little Tykes products. Part I: Five reasons why Little Tikes Products are so popular. Somewhere, at this very moment, a three year old is napping in his Little Tikes racecar bed. In the next room, his four-year-old sister is sitting at her pint-sized Little Tikes table, having a tea party with her teddy bears. Across the street, another little boy is using his Little Tikes Large Loader Truck to haul sand in his Little Tikes Turtle Sandbox. Next door, his five-year-old neighbor is also in her yard, playing in her Little Tikes Magic Doorbell Playhouse or climbing on her Little Tikes Easy Store Activity Gym. These scenarios, and many similar ones, occur in American neighborhoods everyday. If a neighborhood has children, it also has Little Tikes products. If you have a young child, it’s nearly impossible not to own something manufactured by Little Tikes. They make more than 200 items for babies and children between the ages of 9 months and 8 years. A peek at their Spring 2001 catalog is overwhelming! In it, you will find 35 pages of toys including trucks, musical toys, piggy banks, pretend kitchens and workshops for role playing; toddler beds, toy boxes, art desks and table sets; ride-on toys, sports toys, outdoor gym equipment, playhouses, sandboxes and water toys. I think these are the five reasons why Little Tikes products are so popular: Reason #1: their products are extremely durable. Like the Energizer Bunny and my 17 month old toddler, these products “keep going and going and going…” In fact, Little Tikes’ motto is “Toys That Last.” That’s an understatement! Not only will they outlive toddler tantrums and sibling rivalry, I’ve seen them survive Mother Nature’s darkest mood swings! My neighbor has a Little Tikes playhouse in her backyard. During the four years it’s been there, this playhouse has not only withstood searing heat and humidity, but it also survived a flooded backyard and a blizzard that covered it with 14 inches of snow! Yes, it has faded a bit, but the moveable doors and windows still work perfectly. This durability isn’t restricted to their playhouses. In her Epinions review of Little Tikes, Cbgresh describes how her children’s activity gym has also survived blizzards, hurricanes and a tornado. These toys are virtually indestructible! Although they can be left outside, the company recommends moving their products into a garage or basement if the temperature falls below freezing (32° F). Extreme cold can crack even the toughest molded plastic. Reason #2: their products are safe. I admit it—I’m a worrywart when it comes to my son’s safety. In fact, my husband has dubbed me the “safety nazi.” Naturally, I wanted to know if Little Tikes products were safe. I searched the Consumer Product Safety Council’s website to see how many Little Tikes products had been recalled during the past few years. I first viewed their “Holiday Toy Safety Roundup” list for 1999 and 2000, and found that only one Little Tikes toy was included in both lists: their toy basketball nets. However, this appeared to be an industry-wide recall, since many companies were also recalling their basketball nets. To find out if any Little Tikes furniture had been recalled, I checked the CPSC’s “Infant/Child Product Recalls” page. In eight pages of non-toy product recalls, only two Little Tikes products were listed: the Highback Toddler Swing and the Crib Center. Still not convinced (after all, I am the “safety nazi”), I used the CPSC’s search engine and queried Little Tikes. I discovered that only four items had been recalled in the past nine years: the Crib Center, the Highback Toddler Swing, the Dinosaur Mountain Play set and the toy basketball nets. I was amazed—only four items from their line of approximately 200 products! With that kind of record, even the “safety nazi” can sleep peacefully at night! Reason #3: their products WILL capture your child’s imagination and attention. Like many kids, my son has a box full of dusty toys with which he seldom plays. Little Tikes manufactured none of those toys. For example, his stuffed animals receive at least one ride every day in his Load and Ride Dump Truck. His favorite activity after breakfast is to sort those brightly colored screws on his DiscoverSounds Workshop. I’ve noticed that Little Tikes toys equally intrigue other children. When he was two years old, my nephew spent hours playing with his Toddle Tots Loader. His older sister constantly used her Little Tikes Picnic Table for coloring, drawing, reading books and doing simple craft projects. The examples go on and on… Reason #4: Their products will help your child explore the world and learn through play. Children learn through experimentation. When they hit the Tap a Tune Xylophone, they learn that different keys make different sounds. When push themselves around on a ride-on product like Push and Ride Doll Walker, they build muscle tone and gain confidence in their ability to use their legs. When they shoot balls into their Easy Score Basketball Set, they learn about teamwork. And when they use a slide on their Variety Climber or rock back and forth on their Rock-a-Saur Teeter Totter, they learn about gravity. These are just a few of the educational experiences children experience with products like those created by Little Tikes. I’ve seen a transformation since my son begin playing with his DiscoverSounds Workshop. Initially, he watched me play with the toy. In about a month, he has learned to drop balls in the drill press, click down the handle to pop them out, hit the plastic screws with his green hammer to make funny noises, and pretend to talk to Daddy on his plastic phone. He discovers new things to do every time he plays with the toy! Reason #5: their products are creative and fun loving. Not only do these products capture a child’s attention, they intrigue adults, too. I think they appeal to the child in every adult. Who wouldn’t love to buy groceries at the Shop and Scan Sounds Store, snuggle up in the Sleepytime Express train Toddler Bed or play in the Construction Truck Sandbox and Pool? These toys remind me of my Kindergarten days, when we would play in a post office made out of a large cardboard box and pretend to cook meals on a stove made from a wooden box, some paint and a few spools of thread (for the stove knobs). It was imaginative play at it’s best! Well, there you have it: my Epinion on why Little Tikes products are so popular! Watch tomorrow’s “Newest Opinions” for Part II of this review, which will answer every parent’s burning questions about Little Tikes products.  |
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