NEW YORK — Among the hot trends and developments that are being featured at the toy industry’s annual American International Toy Fair, whose four-day run ends today: toys that teach manners.
Busy parents are looking for any help they can get in training their children to be not only smart but also polite.
Enter the toymakers, who are addressing parents’ growing concerns about rude behavior in preschool and kindergarten with playthings that teach boys and girls about listening, sharing and saying “thank you.”
Hasbro Inc.’s Playskool division is introducing Noodleboro, a series of board games that take players to a park, a pizza parlor and a picnic. With the Manners Picnic Basket game, if kids fail to say “please” and “thank you,” hungry ants could swarm the picnic and end the game.
