Image by Imranbecks and shared under this Creative Commons license: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/deed.en I was walking in the park the other day and happened to notice a man and a young boy playing on the basketball court with a remote control car. They caught my attention for a variety of reasons, and brought up some questions to ponder that I’d like to share with you.

As I approached, the boy, probably no more than two years old, was kneeling on the court, pushing the car with his hand. The man took the car away and used the remote to send it running around the court. The boy was clearly able to understand the purpose of the remote, despite how he’d chosen to play with the car, because he took to stretching up for it and trying to climb the man to get it.

I was never close enough to hear what they were saying (though it appeared the boy was non-verbal). As such, I put my own interpretation on the event.

Given the timing, I’d guess the remote control car was a Christmas present, or at the very least, it seemed relatively new to the two of them. My first interpretation was that the man had been as patient as he could be with the boy playing, and finally took the remote to get a turn with the car. While maybe not the most politic of moves, it does show an instance of adulthood being a barely maintained facade over the “let me have a turn” mentality of a child. After all, remote control vehicles are cool.

But as I walked away, I looked at the situation from another angle.

What if rather than playing a cruel game of keep away, the man had been trying to help the boy figure out how the remote control works and how to play with a remote control car “properly?”

And if it’s the second, there’s two pieces worth pondering:

1) When do we make the transition from hands on enjoyment to remote controls? Is it developmental, or trained?

We talk about keeping active, we have all these different pieces of equipment to replace physical activity in the real world, and while simulators like the Wii are popular, there’s no sense of nostalgia about the heft or feel of the real thing. There are re-enactment societies, for military or medieval times for example, but participation is not a mainstream goal. Most Americans (other countries may differ), it seems, use treadmills and gym machines for exercise (not condemning, just commenting. I have an elliptical myself), while entertainment is movies and video games more often than flag football or hiking. Virtual experiences within the sterile environment of home or gym. Vicarious travel to wonderful places without leaving the house or the movie theater. One or more steps of isolation. The remote control participation in life.

2) Why would a man encourage the boy to leave off active participation (manually pushing the car around) in favor of restricting involvement to small finger movements while watching the car do all the exploring?

There’s something about remote controls, about waving a hand and seeing things happen, that appeals to most people. I’m certainly not immune. When I walk through a mall, I love to stop at the kiosk with all sorts of remote controlled flying machines, setting a train in action around the track is a thing of beauty, and navigating a room with a remote control car is fun. I don’t know why, exactly, but it is. It appeals much more than crawling around pushing it by hand, seeing what there is to see in the up close and personal version (ignoring the disincentive of sore knees, it still does not have the same draw as the remote control). But at the same time, I like working with wood and cloth, I like making music as much as listening to music others have made, and I do like hiking to explore new places, so it’s not a fear of work, or even being disinclined to explore. But whether cultural or developmental, there’s a stigma attached to crawling around on the floor, to playing with vehicles you have to move yourself. Is it the toy companies encouraging this change?

Anyway, when I said they were worth pondering, I meant it. I have no answers, only more questions. So, what are your thoughts and ponderings?