Silly Bandz: Opinions?

http://news.yahoo.com/s/time/20100527/us_time/08599199179700

Saw this article today and thought it might make an interesting blog rant Haha

So...I'm sure anyone with kids or who works with kids are familiar with these things. Basically, they're rubber band bracelets that when you remove them from your wrist you discover they're actually shaped like something.



Kids all over are obsessed with them at the moment. Remember pogs? Slap bracelets? Etc Etc...yeah, well this seems to be the latest.

Personally, my opinion of them is that they're just plain stupid. I mean, the shapes are cute and stuff, but really, what a waste of money and honestly, they look so stupid on kids wrists because they're all strange shaped and stuff. It looks like they're wearing colorful garbage around as pretend jewelry. I don't know, from day one that I saw them I was annoyed by them.

As a nanny, I've watched my kids become obsessed with them and as their collections have expanded and more and more of the bandz end up adding themselves to their wrists I cringe a little more. They're also very easily lost and it causes very dramatic tantrums. Just last week my little 6 year old had a fit before school because she couldn't find the blue dolphin bracelet, and let me tell you how fun it is to search a cluttered playroom for a rubber band!!!! Hello needle in a haystack!

But, my opinion of the trend aside, I do get how these kid trends catch on and really matter when you're young. Heck, trends matter just as much as adults don't they so really who am I to talk in terms of not following the crowd. In that regard I get it. When all your friends have them and are talking about them you want to fit in and join the conversation and have something brag worthy to bring to the table. If all anyone at school wants to do is trade bracelets, of course you'd want to be in on the game.

From a teacher's perspective though, these trends are a big pain in the butt. I was teaching during the massive upswing of Pokeman and Yu-Gi-Oh! cards and I can tell you that as a teacher there was nothing I hated more! The problem with fad trading items is that there's no ownership to each individual thing. The idea is to trade them. For a teacher this is a nightmare because what always happens is that during the day kids are making underground trade arrangements when teachers aren't looking and during free times like lunch and recess. That alone is annoying to a teacher because often this takes place during class times when the kids should clearly be doing something else. But even if its only happening during the free play time, what then happens is that you never know which item belongs to which child and it becomes an epic battle of "he said/she said".

"But Miss Willis, that Pokemon card is MINE! She took it from me!"

"NO! He's lying Miss Willis! He traded me at recess! Its mine now!"

You don't know who's is who's, you feel like everyone is lying. Sometimes kids trade then change their minds and try to convince the friend they traded with that they didn't really "mean" to trade the card they did. Sometimes no trades were made at all and kids would just steal from one another and claim there was a trade. Once I had a little boy lose his ENTIRE collection of Yu-Gi-Oh! cards (and those things are NOT cheap people!) and I had his parent in the class yelling at me because "someone" must have stolen them and what was I going to do about it? The truth is, there's nothing I could do about it! If the cards were stolen, how on earth could I prove the cards had originally been his when every kid in the class had a collection of some sort and nothing was labeled with names.

Yes, trading items and classrooms DO NOT MIX! Trust me people! If you can't label it with a name then DON'T SEND IT TO SCHOOL!!!

I'm sure all kids and many parents are mad when a school bans such an item. You feel like the children's fun and friendship and creativity is being squashed. That its all just fun and games and why can't the schools lighten up. Well, just think about it from the teachers perspective for a minute. If I were still teaching, these bracelets would DEFINITELY be banned from my classroom, just as I had to ban the trading cards. It may eliminate some fun, but trust me, the teachers do NOT need the added drama or stress!