Pinatas: A Bad Idea for Your Child's Party? [View All]

[The Straight Story]

Pinatas: A Bad Idea for Your Child's Party?

Vanessa Bartlemus, Yahoo! Contributor Network

A blindfolded child is let up to some poor helpless papier-mâché animal hanging off a tree by a string. They have a stick or a bat in their hand, and they proceed to whack the animal with all their might. Other children are cheering on the fight. When the piñata is broken open, candy spills out. Everyone rushes to grab as much candy as they can. It's every kid for them self.

Doesn't sound like such a good party game when it's put like that, huh?

Piñatas are not a good idea for your child's party. Children should never hit anything with a stick. Even worse, kids can get piñatas in their favorite character too. Doesn't anyone slightly cringe at the thought of their child whacking Dora the Explorer or Elmo around with a baseball bat? What is that doing for a child's character? Getting a flower or car piñata is only slightly less worse.

People carefully teach their children, from the first time they playfully hit as a baby, that hitting is wrong. They don't allow hitting in their family and they don't spank. But then children are allowed to hit piñatas to the breaking point. Then they get candy; they are rewarded for violent behavior!

..


So what are some better alternatives? There are now pull-string piñatas...which get rid of the hitting element. Your child pulls a string and the contents of the piñata fall out. That way, your child can have the experience of having a piñata at their party, without the violence.

http://www.associatedcontent.com/article/5550034/pinatas_a_bad_idea_for_your_childs.html?cat=25