Fidget Spinners: Should Our Kids Mess with These?

I was a pen chewer all through grade school and high school. After I graduated from school I graduated from pen chewing to pen clicking, and pen spinning or tapping. So, I understand the restlessness of knee bouncing, or the desire to fidget with something when you're supposed to be sitting still.

I had seen the Fidget Spinners flying around on the fingertips of kids for a while, but it seems over the last two years the popularity has spread everywhere.

My daughter got a couple different fidgets, the first one pictured above I don't mind some of the time. The other fidget is shaped like a cube and has all sorts of clicking, pushing, pulling, and clicking buttons all over it. That one is just to noisy, and I can't hang with that one.

My daughter told me some of the teachers in her school allow the kids to have the fidgets during class, and other teachers don't. No surprise, and each teachers rules for their room must be respected.

Different fidgets have different styles and make different claims for their use, and benefits. Some claim they alleviate stress, anxiety, help with ADD, and ADHD.  Others are for straight up playing with, and mastering fidget tricks.

It was a blog title from Cristina Bolusi Zawacki that caught my attention over the weekend that said "I'm a teacher, and trust me when I say that spinners are the effing worst."

Now before I even read the article I'll admit I have had to put multiple limitation on the fidget spinner in my house, and other life areas where I just can't handle the spinning anymore.

The fidget spinner which was designed to help the the user focus, is at times for me as the other person in the room way to distracting.

After a week of having the spinner I've already put in the boundary of no fidgets while were eating, driving, or watching a movie.

I quickly realized why some teachers have put limitations, and in some cases classroom bans on the fidgets.

As Cristina mentions in her blog on WorkingMother.com "These are not the helpful devices they were intended to be. Instead, they’ve become the Millennial/Gen Z/Linkster version of Pokémon cards, Pogs or Tamagotchis. Now I understand why MY teachers hated those obnoxious things with the same red-hot rage I feel for fidget spinners."

You can read the entire blog post here. 

I'm guessing like most things fidgets will come, and go only to be replaced by something else. I ponder what that might be as I tap my pen on the edge of my desk.

See Also: