Here's one you should probably leave off the list of toys.

@hamjudo Maybe custom scissors or a curved razer would work. The idea would be to design something to cut or shave the hooks off of the balls, with a minimum of hair damage.

Alternatively, something to cut the balls up into small enough pieces to pull them out of the hair.

@Thumperchick Count me in for three . . .

@Thumperchick Wow, they're just a family full of hair drama then aren't they?

@annwat Few people have ever played off each other so well.

@Pamtha I wondered that too. I can see them playing on the floor with them then rolling over. I also read how a few happened, one was a "snowball" fight, another made a hat of the things. Surprisingly reasonable things for kids at those ages

@Pamtha If you found/read the original stories for some, the toys were on the floor and the girls laid on them and continued playing. When they got up, that tangled mess was the result.
Darn kids playing like... kids!

@Thumperchick @foxborn Damn kids! I had visions of these things being sentient and zooming through the air, which was hugely entertaining yet terrifying at the same time. Imagine if a girl fell asleep with them in bed... Ugh

@Pamtha I can't imagine a child that doesn't play with toys in the bed.

@Cerridwyn

http://www.idigitaltimes.com/lego-slippers-are-finally-thing-now-new-lego-branded-house-shoes-prevent-pain-490969

@Cerridwyn kids toys to war... that's quite the jump.

@Thumperchick Not really. Its all a symptom of what I see as our unrealistic view that we can prevent harm, we can prevent death and that we will go to every extreme to see that it happens.

We don't want our kids to dumb stupid things, even though we did them. Many others see it too. There is a book out there called "The Dangerous Book for Boys" (there should be one for girls too.

I stood on a kitchen chair at 5 years old to make pancakes. Not because I had to, but because I wanted to do it, I was exploring, in a way. Most people today wouldn't let a 5 year old near a stove, much less standing up on a chair flipping hotcakes. They would probably be arrested for felony child endangerment. When it was really a parent child bonding moment and a step in my growth and development.

My only child is 36. She and her partner (fiance) decided long ago that they would not have children. I support that decision because I would not want to bring a child into the world today (no offense to you who are preggers or have already hatched rug rats). Kids today don't have a chance to take risks, to learn from them, and to grow.

Okay off my soapbox.

@Cerridwyn There is a Daring Book For Girls. Every generation makes improvements on safety and changes some part of how their children are raised, this is how humanity evolves. This isn't a bad thing, as it brings the species and society forward as a whole.
With these changes we lower childhood death rates and injuries. This is a good thing. The folly is in thinking that because we did XYZ back in a previous generation, that is is the "best" way to do it and any change, evolution or improvement is BAD! When since that time, we've moved into the safest time to be alive (in a first world country) and the human IQ is consistently getting higher, our technology is constantly improving and life continues to get better. Kids today do take risks, just different risks.

I'll take those changes and hope that as I grow older and after my kid is grown, that I have the grace to accept that the world marches forward, making way for even more wonderful changes and better, kinder, smarter humans than I've seen so far.

@Cerridwyn Don't paint everyone with the bubble or helicopter parent brush. Some of us still let our kids use dead Grandpa's wheelchair to roll down the sledding hill (while buckled in "for safety"). Thankfully we've not had any major 911 injuries, just a couple of fell-off-the-monkey-bars or playing-football minor breaks. They live and learn.

@Pamtha Aren't they like, made of rubber for a while anyway? I'm pretty sure that's how it works...

@Cerridwyn I'm in agreement with your daughter and at the about the same age too LOL Part of it is I watch the kids out there and I do fear for the future. Yes there are some great kids growing up out there and I think the Children of the Mehers I see here will be among the best, but the other kind? Whinny, privileged, Spoiled (in the wrong way), brats.

I will say though in addition to the "condition" I see in society I don't think I'd be a good mommy and I think I've known since I was a teen.

does this mean I hate kids nope. Hell, most kids love me. Maybe because they can since something that has to do with my choice to not me a "mommy"

Meh ¯_(ツ)_/¯

@Cerridwyn I just see my son sticking a pile of these in my daughter's hair. Not really an optimal situation.

@sammydog01 once you starting about how these get into hair there are so many understandable ways

@Foxborn Our dog has long fur too.

@Cerridwyn

@sammydog01 I pictured my husky with the saddest expression on his face and little fluffy tangles colors everywhere.

@Pamtha 3 cheers for you! You earn my regard.
and @Thumperchick - safety is overrated. Most significant inventions that make our lives so different involved risk. While not all that risk is a physical one, people who don't risk, don't fail. And people who don't fail don't grow.

Now that is my opinion, obviously not yours. But I have studied and taught enough about leadership successes to know that people who live in the safety bubble are generally not those at the top of the success ladder, whether we are talking about athletes, politicians, scientists or people in general

@Cerridwyn I think toys shouldn’t inflict pain or tears on children. Craziness, i know.

@Cerridwyn, @Thumperchick

Although I don't agree entirely that "safety is overrated", I do agree many kids today are a less robust, more whiny, LESS EMPOWERED, more delicate version of the kids I grew up with.

For example, when my SO's son started kindergarten, I was shocked to find out about the "peanut table". A special table for kids with a peanut allergy.

WTF is a peanut allergy? I never heard of such a thing when I was a kid!

By the time her daughter started kindergarten, the wise and powerful Oz had decided segregating the "peanut kids" was bad for their self image and confidence. The solution? No more peanuts or peanut products permitted on school grounds.

Again... WTF? I SWEAR there was no such thing as a peanut allergy when I was a kid. Now every third kid is allergic, so NOBODY is allowed to have them. How does this even happen??

Things like THIS make me weep for the future:

^ what a prescient user name

@ruouttaurmind food allergies? Totally the best way to make your argument for kids personality differences... with an incurable, uncontrollable medical condition.

@Thumperchick You mistake my observation for argument. Confusion perhaps. But not arguement.

My question is genuine: "How does this even happen?"

GMOs? Fluoridated water? High fructose corn suryp? When I was a child we never even heard of peanut allergies and now its so common every school class has at least a few allergic kids. How does this even happen?

@ruouttaurmind That's a bit more reasonable. Your original post definitely read as though you either didn't believe in food allergies, didn't believe in their severity, or didn't believe that there has been a massive uptick in the past decade or so. These things are all pretty hard to deny. Nobody is quite sure what causes said food allergies, and while that would be nice to know, it doesn't change the fact that the percentage of children with peanut allergies is… a good shake over 1, now? So, given a lunch room with a hundred children, there's a possibility that one of them will go into anaphylactic shock and die. This can be mitigated in a number of ways. If the surest way is banning PB&Js, is that not worth it? It's a far cry from the Participation Award that you also mentioned. That's worth debating, there's probably an interesting conversation to be had there about what we're teaching children and blah blah… but, that's very different than acting bitter that you can't send a kid to school with a PB&J just because another kid might incidentally die. Which was kind of how your original comment came off. This response, on the other hand, is an interesting thing to discuss… There are a shitload of theories out there as to why peanut allergies have so dramatically shot up, as you mention… a lot of dietary things have changed… it's going to be a tricky link to find. Hell, for a while they were apparently suggesting that pregnant & breastfeeding women avoid peanuts… then discovered that those children were probably more likely to develop said allergies… It's a mess, but for now we're stuck with these elevated numbers. Which, despite the inconveniences, hopefully means protecting those kids. Not from something debatable like a participation award, but from something that would otherwise require stabbing a child with a needle full of adrenaline in order to keep them from dying.

@brhfl In re-reading my original posting... point taken. It's not exactly lucid, is it. :-)

I failed in making a few points.

1.I believe kids are different today. Mentally, emotionally and physically, when compared to my own childhood and my friends and acquaintances from my childhood.

2.I have no facts or statistics to support my assertion, but I'm firmly convinced peanut (and other food allergies) in children (and adults?) has increased dramatically since I was a child. I do NOT believe this is because kids are mollycoddled or given participation ribbons. I would postulate, as I mention in my previous posting, it has to do with dietary changes such as GMO's. Perhaps even GMO peanuts themselves could be the cause. Further, I absolutely recognize the seriousness of this affliction. I do not attempt to make light or suggest it's not serious.

3.I DO believe many kids are overly mollycoddled. By parents, by school systems, by society in general. As a result, children I encounter tend to be more whiny, less self-sufficient, and with a strong sense of entitlement I, and my peers did not posses as children. THIS, I do believe may have something to do with participation ribbons. I reference my SO's son (I'll call him Nick), and his experience playing sports. Nick started playing T-ball when he was 6. I was stunned when I discovered they do not keep score. Even if Player One misses the ball entirely, he is encouraged around the bases. I was shunned for rooting on Nick when he had a particularly good play. I was told (paraphrasing) "Praising Nick for tagging out Player One is not good for Player One's sense of self". Basically, by encouraging Nick to do well I was putting down Player One. As Nick has grown and evolved he is left without motivation to succeed. Why should he try harder if he's going to get a participation trophy anyway? Why should he excel if he's going to get a passing grade?

Is it just Nick that has this lack of motivation to be better? To improve? To excel? Well, no, Nick's peers, our neighbors kids, my friends and associate's children... all have varying degrees of the same apathy. And however hard I try to encourage excellence, I'm fighting against a society that does not place an emphasis on such values. While I'm trying to teach Nick to be his best self, the society and circles he's growing in teach him to be his adequate self.

Anyhoo... this could easily become @ruouttaurmind's diatribe on the woes of child rearing in a society remarkably different than "the good old days". So I will stop myself here and offer a humble apology to @Thumperchick, @brhfl and anyone else who was offended by my poorly expressed conflagration from yesterday.